


The Chasm Between My Mind and Me

by Reign_of_Rayne



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Hallucinations, Nobody is ok, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Steve is not ok, another feel-better Bucky story, attempts at humor, because I'm a sap, bucky is not ok
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-21
Updated: 2017-10-18
Packaged: 2018-08-23 19:29:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 49,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8339893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reign_of_Rayne/pseuds/Reign_of_Rayne
Summary: Three months after Bucky moves into the Tower - nine months since Insight - Bucky thinks he is getting a handle on his identity and the world he now lives in. But his mind is a collection of broken glass, and when the hallucination comes Bucky thinks he should really be more surprised.





	1. Abrupt Beginnings

It's eight in the morning and Bucky has no idea what the hell is going on.

The toaster is smoking, the blond alien from space is speaking with the archer about godly breakfast needs, Romanoff has burnt pastry in her hair, Banner is quietly sipping his tea at the table, and Stark is staring at the entire scene in shock with what appears to be half an eyebrow missing.

Steve and Wilson are out on their run and Bucky wishes he had joined them.

"Thor," Romanoff says. There is ice in her voice. "Why is your breakfast in my hair?"

"It was actually mine," Barton says while he turns to face Romanoff. "Thunderthighs here thought he could just steal it, which—" he sees Romanoff's expression and shuts up.

"My deepest apologies for sending the pastry flying into your hair," Thor says.

He's from space. And he's apologizing about pastries in a spy's hair.

What the hell.

Bucky takes his tea and book and relocates to the common room. It is quieter there, though he can still hear the ruckus from the kitchen.

"They're insane."

Bucky agrees, but he does not look up from his newspaper. The other man in the room continues regardless.

"I mean, that guy is from space. Space! He wields a hammer and eats pastries for breakfast. His cape alone could have functioned as a blanket for three of me. And he can fly!"

Bucky flexes the metal arm.

"Okay, yeah. There's…that. The arm."

The man goes silent. Bucky continues reading, occasionally drinking his tea.

By the time Sam and Steve return, the situation in the kitchen has been sorted out. Romanoff had washed her hair before heading out with Barton on some mission. Thor had claimed an urgent matter that required his attention and left, and Banner had gone to his room to meditate. Stark had—much to Bucky's surprise—taken a spot on the couch opposite him, fiddling with his watch.

Bucky wonders whether the watch will explode and take the rest of Stark's facial hair with it.

"What happened to your eyebrow?" Wilson asks when he walks into the room several minutes later. Steve is a step behind him but Bucky can see the same question pulling his lips into a bemused smile.

"There was an unfortunate accident involving a match, a dirty rag, and a robot who does not understand how a fire extinguisher works," Stark replies without looking up. "By the way, Wilson, your new wings are almost ready. Meet me tomorrow in Lab Three at seven."

"In the morning?"

"Yes."

Bucky can hear Wilson's sigh, but he has learned that Wilson rarely means the way he acts. He wonders if the man is even aware of his manipulation. If it can even be called manipulation, because Bucky cannot see any malicious intent behind it.

"I could always wait another few days," starts Stark.

"No, no. Thanks, man. I do appreciate it, really. Steve, your coffee machine has a pre-grind setting, right?"

"Probably."

"Also, dibs on first shower."

Bucky knows that Steve's floor has two bathrooms with showers. One is connected to Steve's room, and one is connected to Bucky's. But neither Wilson nor Steve has ever tried to use Bucky's.

It's nice. Having his own shower. Weird, too. But nice, on the bad days when he can feel frost biting at his skin and the blistering hot water melts it away. Or when his body is quivering and he can't stop looking at the windows and doors and the water is enough to dampen the paranoia—

He knows, really, that it's not paranoia. Not when there is an organization dedicated to evil pursuing him every day. But thinking about that makes the bad days worse.

Today is a good day, so he listens to Steve and Stark chat for a while with half an ear, the rest of his focus dedicated to reading. He has found an interest in sci-fi, especially in books that make decent attempts to explain the nuts and bolts of what is going on. None of them are perfect, but for a while they get Bucky out of his head.

"They're better than what we used to read."

Bucky does not acknowledge the speaker this time. Not when Stark and Steve are in the room. They would notice.

"'Course, most of that stuff was textbooks 'n crap. Arithmetic didn't do anyone a lick of good when the bullets started raining down."

Bucky does not have to point out that imaginary spaceships and lasers would have amounted to the same result. The speaker's silence indicates that he knows.

"What are you even doing to your watch?" Steve asks, and Bucky flicks his eyes up because he is curious of the same thing.

Stark grins, setting down the tools he had been wielding with expert precision. "Observe."

He taps a few buttons and then pulls the watch over his hand. The metal bends—no, it unfolds, red plates covering most of the back of his hand until the smooth movement abruptly becomes jerky and ominous sparks begin to fall from Stark's palm.

"Uh," says Stark. "Give me five minutes."

Steve heads off to get ready for his shower. Bucky returns to his reading, and Stark mumbles to himself.

 

 

*

 

The good day ends. It has to end, and it does. It ends when Bucky goes to his room and cannot sleep. It ends when he closes his eyes and all he can see is a metal hand where there should be one made of flesh, and nausea wells up so fast he barely makes it to the bathroom before the retching starts.

The sight of his metal hand does not help.

It is the beginning of a long night.

He spends hours doing nothing. Intentionally nothing; staring at a wall, keeping his mind blank. The pointed kind of blank he knows from years behind a sniper's scope, the kind of blank carved into his mind whether he wants it or not.

He spends hours doing little things. Steve had tried to get him to sketch, if only to relieve stress and offer another venue of communication. But Bucky is not an artist, if he ever was, and he has only filled the sketchbook Steve gifted him with scratchy nothings and angry marks, entire pages torn out or ruined.

He spends hours cleaning his weapons. He does it ritually, an action that does not change no matter how many times he does it. It is comforting, regular. The kind of regular that sketching cannot offer, because his guns and knives do not respond to his mood.

He gives up on staying in his room at four in the morning and taps the wall three times. It is the signal he and JARVIS have agreed upon for when Bucky wants to speak to the AI from within his private quarters. The rest of the time, Bucky has total privacy.

Supposedly.

"Yes, Sergeant?"

"I want to go to the roof."

"I will unlock the doors."

"Thank you."

Getting to the elevator without waking Steve or Sam is too easy, and the machine itself is almost silent. Speakers play soft music until the elevator slows and then stops with a quiet ding.

The roof is empty and quiet save for the faint whistling of the wind and the sounds of the city far below. Bucky walks right to the edge and looks down. The wind is pushing him back towards the roof, and the distant sounds of the city quiet the static in his mind.

He sits, swinging his legs over the edge.

A flash-memory:

_Legs dangling, rusting metal crossed over itself, bars as handgrips while he stares at the alley below—_

It's gone as soon as it comes, but Bucky can call it back, can remember the fire escape outside the building that Steve always used to sketch on.

There is no context, no hint of Steve in the memory itself. Just the metal digging into his thighs and his feet hanging in empty air. Dust in the breeze and a sky that flickers between sun and moon, cloudy and clear.

He breathes deep. He can taste the city in the air, the grit and the fumes and the exhaust. He isn't sure how much of it is real and how much is just in his mind.

Inside the tower it's clean. Potts uses air fresheners and has the cleaners use scented cleaning products in the common room, but Steve had expressed a preference for nothing of the sort on his floor. Bucky can understand; with enhanced senses, the smells can be overpowering in concentrated areas.

But Steve has never mentioned that part to Potts. Bucky doubts he ever will.

Bucky swings his feet absently, his mind spread out. Taking in the city, letting it wash over his tired brain and ease out the parts that sleep had not been able to touch.

The Asset never swung its legs.

Bucky wonders if he can whistle.

"You can."

He glances to the right. The young man that no one else can see is there, dark hair slicked back and an old jacket—barely dirty at all—hanging over him. His features match Bucky's. Younger, if only by a few years.

Not including the frozen years.

"You learned from Tommy, at school. Practiced day 'n night until you got it right."

"I doubt I can still do it," Bucky says, looking back over the city.

"Never hurts to try."

Bucky does not try. But he glances at the young man, who has been appearing every now and then for the past week. "Why are you here?"

For a moment, the jaunty tilt to the young man's lips turns dark, his jovial expression twisted. "'Cause we ain't right in the head, pal." He is smiling normally again in an instant. "'Sides, this could be worse. You really want everything all at once?"

He gets a headache thinking about it. A lifetime of memories wiped and warped and twisted shoved back into his conscious mind all at once would hurt more than the Chair. He shakes his head, metal hand digging into the ledge.

"That's what I thought."

For a few minutes, the loudest noise is Bucky's breathing.

"You gotta get some sleep, pal."

Bucky huffs. "Sleep doesn't want me."

"We can't help the dreams."

"Nightmares, memories. Not dreams. If that's the happy shit I won't survive the rest."

"Still—"

"No."

"You're like Steve when he's sick. Stubborn about what's best."

"Alright," Bucky says, every word flat. "I'm going to lie there. In the bed. Doing nothing." He smiles without humor. "Or I could sit here, and do nothing, but with better things in my head. There is a difference."

The hallucination Bucky calls James frowns but does not argue. He can't.

Bucky looks down, but what hits him isn't vertigo—

_Falling and white-cold and agony ripping his body to pieces and Steve where are you you're okay right Steve it's cold—_

He yanks himself away from the edge of the roof, rolling on the ground before coming to a stop on his back, the night sky stretching out above him. He can pick out the North Star but very few others, and a far calmer memory slips through, just the impression that he's done this before, stargazing. He waits, but no details come.

He's disappointed. The feeling pools in his gut, but it's familiar. Memories and impressions come and go. It only gets bad when Steve is in the room, when the pressure comes. Then every lost memory is an attack against Steve, his habit of believing in the face of overwhelming doubt—

Bucky blinks. Light has begun to flow from the eastern horizon, barely visible over the railing of the roof from Bucky's flat position.

Steve is probably awake by now.

Bucky gets up and heads back inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some plot points that aren't directly addressed in the story and may be confusing some people: Bucky came to the Tower about three months prior to the start of this chapter (9 months after Insight). He stayed mostly isolated in Steve's floor for over two of those months and has only been interacting with the Avengers for a week or so. When Steve and Sam found him, Bucky was living on his own. They (metaphorically) circled each other for a while before Bucky agreed to come with Steve.
> 
> Also, since nine chapters of this work are already out on ff.net, I'll be posting them daily on here until I catch up.


	2. Progression and Regression

Bucky does not spar. Most of the others do; Steve often goes against Thor, and they work on complicated maneuvers that must have taken weeks to get right even twice in a row. Romanoff and Barton spar against each other, Steve, or Wilson, and Bucky recognizes many of the fighting styles they use. Banner stays away from the training floor, but Bucky figures he must do something in his time to at least sharpen his mind if not his skills.

But Bucky does not spar. He runs. Lap after lap around the track, and it would get boring but JARVIS adds obstacles at random intervals. Sometimes Bucky believes the AI is trying to trip him, but he never falls or stumbles. He can jog for hours. In the second month after he came to this place, Bucky had gone to the gym at hours he knew it would be empty in order to quiet the memories in his head by exhausting himself. Steve had only caught Bucky sneaking off their floor a few times, but Bucky suspects that Steve had noticed his absence plenty more than that and had chosen not to do anything to stop him.

He runs for thirty minutes and then stops. There is a climbing wall on one side of the gym that Bucky has been eyeing since his first foray into the massive room, but getting to it means getting close to Steve and Thor.

"Just run past the super soldier and the space alien guy currently throwing around very dangerous weapons," James says. "It'll be fun. Like dodgeball."

Bucky figures getting hit with the hammer Thor carries will hurt much more than a rubber ball.

"You've been pining after the wall for weeks. Just go, already. Stevie isn't gonna care."

Bucky scans the gym thoroughly under the pretense of retying his shoe before he begins walking. He watches the match between Steve and Thor carefully.

When the hammer inevitably misses its intended target and flies towards Bucky, he ducks. It whistles over his head and then back the way it had come.

"Sorry, my friend!" Thor calls.

Bucky stares at the massive man for a moment, wondering how to respond. He decides no response is necessary, and continues to the climbing wall without further incident.

The wall is bigger up close. Bucky estimates that it is at least thirty feet, and he is not surprised that Stark went for something so tall. He climbs it—not quickly, not slowly, letting a steady burn build in his muscles—and when he gets to the top, he swings himself up and sits with his legs hanging over the edge. He watches Steve and waits for the vertigo to set in like it had last night.

"It's not gonna," says James.

Steve is far away, distracted. He won't notice anything amiss if Bucky talks to James.

Bucky doesn't like the idea of keeping James a secret. He just—it would confuse Steve. He'd get worried, and then Bucky would have to explain everything and he'd inevitably mess it up and the entire thing would become another mess drilling holes in Bucky's brain. He is keeping it a secret from Steve to protect Steve, and he ignores the voice hissing in the back of his mind that he's just doing it so Steve won't see him as weak and throw him out—

So. Secrets.

"How do you know?" replies Bucky.

"Because it wasn't vertigo the first time, pal. 'Sides, it's nice up here."

Bucky agrees. He can see the whole gym, and there is a solid wall at his back. It is a vantage point that makes him feel—not relaxed, but it eases some of the tension he feels when he enters a space he is not intimately familiar with. He is not intimately familiar with most of the rooms in this tower save his own, and on bad days not even there. Right now it's nice, because even though his mind is trying to pull him back to his earlier thoughts he can push himself against the wall and stay in the moment.

He keeps observing Steve.

"Idiot's dropping his guard on the left side," James says. Bucky glances at him; James looks older. He is wearing a loose-fitting uniform.

"He is," Bucky says, and returns his attention to Steve.

"We gotta tell him."

"Later."

"Why not now?"

Because Thor is there and the room is too open and Bucky's mind is too loud.

"Later."

"Okay."

 

*

 

Later is seven hours later, when he and Steve are finishing dinner. Steve has made pasta, one of the small array of dishes he can prepare and serve with complete confidence. Bucky eats less than Steve, and slower, but even though he wants to eat more he knows too much at once will make him nauseous. He has smoothies and shakes to supplement his meals, and the amount he can eat is increasing, if slowly, as is the variety of what he can eat.

But Steve always frowns at his plate anyway. Not a big frown, but the kind of worried frown Bucky has seen him directing at Romanoff, Banner, and even Stark. He tries to hide it but Bucky never misses it.

The meal progresses slowly and Bucky's need to report to Steve about his observations grows as an irritating itch in the back of his brain that he ignores until he can't anymore.

"You don't cover your left side," Bucky says as he sets down his fork. Steve glances up, surprise on his face until he wipes it away.

"Pardon?"

"Your left side," Bucky repeats. "You aren't covering it. Your shield is three centimeters too low and four centimeters too far to your right when you block."

"Uh—" Steve blinks, then shakes his head to clear it. "Right. Natasha mentioned that to me the other day." He looks as though he is going to say something else, but he just purses his lips and says nothing.

"We used to cover his left side," James says. Bucky glances at him, and James looks even older. Worn out, dust and grime on his features and in his hair. Years in his eyes. "That was our job."

Steve had probably been about to say something to that effect. Hence the pursed lips, the I'm-a-self-torturing-jackass expression.

He has to fix this. Dinner and the rest of the day had been going well. Bucky does not want to end on a low note. He manages an expression approximating something positive.

"And you didn't listen to her?"

The tension in Steve's shoulder eases. Not much, but noticeably.

Progress.

 

*

 

James flips between ages. Bucky does not know the context for them, but he can see the general gist of each one. There is the teenager, the young man, and the army man in a clean uniform and another army man in a blue coat. And something dark buried beneath all of them, a persona Bucky suspects he has not seen yet.

"Y'know, I haven't seen Steve smile in a while," James says. He is a teenager now, lying on Bucky's bed and tossing an intangible ball up and down. "He's got that dumb worry line in his forehead. Gonna get wrinkles before Ol' Jan does." James abruptly sits up, the ball vanishing before it hits his head. He is looking at Bucky with strange intent. "You can't let him get like that. Not Stevie. Ya hear?"

Bucky nods, not sure what he is agreeing to. He cannot stop Steve from being upset. He does not have the information to positively affect Steve's mood reliably. He does not know what will make Steve smile.

He does not know what will make Steve smile.

 

*

 

Bucky does not sleep for forty-one hours. He does not leave his room for fifty-seven hours. Steve leaves food outside his door and does not knock more than once a day.

The hot water in the shower runs red down the drain.

 

*

 

Steve and Wilson are running. Bucky is in the tower, alone on Steve's floor.

"Your floor too," James says.

It's a formality. This is Steve's floor because without Steve Bucky would not be here. He can still remember the first few days (mere weeks ago) after Stark found out the truth about his parents' death, can remember the urge to run-kill-disappear driving him to the roof most nights.

Can remember Steve talking to him during those late hours. Steve and one more: the redhead. Romanoff. She had been cautious and wary but her words came from a different angle than Steve's, pulled apart the tangle of Bucky's thoughts from the other end and that helped, usually. She always left before Bucky snapped.

Romanoff is interesting. Bucky suspects they have crossed paths before—even before Insight. But he does not remember, and she does not say anything.

He knows there is a reason for that. He does not know the specifics, but he does not have to.

The silence of Steve's floor is stifling. Bucky needs to see someone, hear movement. Hear people. Know he is not alone.

"I'm here," says James.

Bucky ignores him and gets to his feet. In two minutes he is heading for the elevator, grabbing the book he has been reading for the past couple of days on the way. A gift from Steve, who noticed Bucky's interest in fiction and acted accordingly.

Somewhere, there is significance in having something freely given to him—as a gift. But Bucky does not want to think about that right now.

Banner and a woman Bucky has not been introduced to yet are the only ones on the common floor. After a second spent determining how much of a threat the woman is, Bucky walks to the cabinets lining the kitchen and pulls out a box of crackers. He then grabs a jar of peanut butter and moves to the table, putting his back to the wall and opening his book.

It takes the woman three minutes and twenty-four seconds to approach him. Bucky eats a peanut-butter-dipped cracker while she sits down. He is very aware of the knives hidden on his person and the places on her body where she can hide weapons of her own. She stands out of his reach, right at the point where Bucky's senses say _ally_ and not _threat_.

"We haven't been introduced yet," she says. "I'm Maria Hill. You can call me Hill. I run security in the Tower for Tony."

She sticks out her hand. Bucky eyes it for a moment, seeing no signs of weapons or contact poisons. Banner is still in the room. No attacker aware of his identity would be stupid enough to start a fight with him nearby.

Security. Bucky finds it amusing—in a dark way that he knows Steve would not find funny—that he has not met her before. Surely Stark would want his head of security accustomed to the deadly assassin living in the same building as his significant other.

Bucky shakes her hand. She has a strong grip. "Bucky Barnes. Barnes."

"Nice to meet you, Barnes."

The thought of it being nice for anyone to be introduced to him makes Bucky's lips want to turn up at the corners, but he stifles the expression and nods.

She gets up in the half second before the lack of conversation would have become awkward. Bucky returns to his book and his crackers.

"You coulda been more polite," James says a few minutes later. His hair is slicked back, his youthful frame bound by a dark suit.

"Why?" Bucky says, but he speaks quietly. Banner and Hill have moved to the other room and Bucky is out of their lines of vision. He does not know for sure how sensitive their hearing is.

"She's a dame. You gotta be polite to dames. Mom taught us that."

"She taught you that."

James frowns. Bucky can see his expression over his book and pauses in his reading.

"What?"

"She taught _us_ that," James says, something dark lurking behind his teenage eyes. "You hear? Us. Me. You."

Bucky nods only to stop the conversation and forestall the headache he can already feel encroaching on the left side of his brain.


	3. Threat Potential

James grows more and more talkative every day. Sometimes he becomes the dust-covered army man and speaks much less, but those episodes are rare. Bucky realizes they correspond to his mood; on bad days, James is usually older.

Bucky knows there is an event that James's behavior as the dusty army man is caused by, but James will not admit it and Bucky is hesitant to ask Steve about what he suspects.

He does not want to see the pain in Steve's eyes.

"You're too hard on him," says James.

Bucky begins reassembling his pistol. "I'm being logical. If the lack of memories causes Steve pain, then I will not bring it up."

"But Steve is going to notice that you're avoiding it," James presses. "Besides, are you sparing him, or yourself?"

Bucky slides the receiver into place.

He doesn't know. He hates seeing that look on Steve's face. He does not want to cause that look. He does not want to see it. Acknowledge the reasons behind it. Realize that Steve is putting way too much faith in hi—

"I don't know," Bucky says.

"Don't run from this."

"I'm not running."

"Don't walk from this, then. We want to protect Steve—from what? What are we protecting him from by not saying anything?"

"Me," Bucky says, because it is the only thing that he can force out. "Me, and my actions."

"Why?"

"Because he will feel guilty," Bucky says, "and I don't want his worry or his pity."

"Stevie doesn't pity us."

Bucky frowned. "You don't know that."

"For chrissakes, pal, Stevie is gonna be the last to delve into pity. After all the nights we sat with him, he _knows_ what pity feels like. And he knows he doesn't like it."

A memory—

_A bed, shades drawn, the haze of sickness hanging in the air—_

_"I'm fine, Buck, honest."_

_"You'll be fine when you're not throwing up everything you eat, pal. Here, I got some crackers. Think you can keep those down?"_

But.

"I don't want to tell him."

"Why not?"

The reasons don't matter.

They do.

But.

"I don't."

James is frowning. Bucky finishes reassembling the pistol, not sure when he had paused. He waits for James to push the issue.

He doesn't.

 

*

 

Bucky is on top of the climbing wall. He had waited for the vertigo again, even with James telling him it was dumb, but there is something linked to that feeling. Every time he looks down and blinks, his vision goes white instead of black. Bucky knows this feeling, in a way; a memory hovering just out of reach, pulled away from his head by electricity.

"They did wipe you mid-op," James mutters. "You remembered a little. Recognized Steve."

_"But I knew him."_

Bucky swallows, his mouth tasting like metal. Later. He can write this all down later.

He turns his attention to watching Wilson loop through the air, dodging obstacles newly built into the ceiling with whoops of excitement.

"I think he likes the new wings," says James. "Also, I want those wings. Put Stark's flying car to shame."

Bucky had not known that Stark had built a flying car, but he nods anyway.

"Buck!"

He looks down and sees Steve waving. After a moment's consideration, Bucky jumps, using the metal arm to catch himself on the rock until he is close enough to the ground to simply drop down. He straightens to see Steve raising one eyebrow.

"Are you showing off?"

"Yes," says James.

Bucky shrugs.

"Well, it's time for lunch. Do you want to eat on our floor?"

Steve always asks even though Bucky always answers yes.

"You can't hide forever," James says. "You've been in the same rooms as everyone. Maybe it's time to try eating with them."

The motors in the metal arm whir in response to Bucky's agitation and Bucky clenches his left hand into a fist to make them stop. He does not want to go into the room filled with people; he does not want to talk, he does not want to interact.

"Try," James says, and he's older and looking right into Bucky's eyes. Bucky presses his lips together.

"No," he says. Steve's expression flickers but he is smiling before Bucky can interpret the emotion.

"You want to eat with the others," he says, making sure he heard right. Bucky nods, ignoring the grin on James's face.

"Yes."

Steve claps Bucky on the shoulder—telegraphing his movement to give Bucky time to pull away if he wants—and then starts walking towards the elevator.

"You didn't flinch that time," James says.

Bucky blinks. He hadn't.

He follows Steve.

 

*

 

They have sandwiches for lunch. But not any sandwiches Bucky recognizes off the bat; Stark takes one that must have at least seven different ingredients while Steve hands Bucky one that could, conceivably, be ham and Swiss.

"You don't have to glare at the sandwich, Buck," Steve says. He grabs another sandwich and takes a bite. "See? They're good."

"Your eyes are watering," Bucky points out, and he only starts a little when Barton laughs.

"Steve loses!" Barton declares.

"Oh thank god," Stark says, setting his sandwich down. Seeing the looks he is getting from the others, he frowns. "What? Sandwich spice roulette is stressful."

"You guys are jerks," Steve says, and Bucky hands him another sandwich and a glass of water. "At least you're on my side."

Debatable. Steve's face is a funny shade of red, and the others' reactions show that this is not anything unusual.

"I wonder what they would've done if you'd gotten the spiced one," James mused.

Steve would've flipped. Bucky doesn't know about the rest of them.

"So there's only one sandwich with dangerous amounts of spice in it?" Romanoff asks. She has not taken a bite out of hers. Neither has Barton; they are watching Stark. Bucky wonders how deep their habits of watching for poisons goes.

He takes a bite of his sandwich, making sure not to look at either Romanoff or Barton. Ten seconds later, they begin eating as well.

Banner is not at lunch.

He is not at dinner, either.

 

*

 

"Do you think he's okay?"

"It's not my business," Bucky says, switching to one-handed push-ups. It's awkward with the metal arm; he still has to train both sides of his body, but the metal arm pulls at his chest and makes his spine and ribs burn. But it's pain he's familiar with, and he finishes his push-ups with gritted teeth and sweat dripping into his eyes.

"He seems like a calm guy," James continues, sitting against the nearby wall with a toothpick hanging from between his lips. "More than the others, at least."

"It's not my business," Bucky repeats. He grabs some water, his heartbeat already returning to normal.

The climbing wall beckons, but his muscles itch for something different. He has already tried the shooting range, but getting the same results over and over got repetitive. The metal arm doesn't waver—

_Pain from his shoulder dislocation head pounding too much going on target climbing can't let him climb have to stop have to shoot can't shoot can't focus can't aim stop the target don't make me do this_ stop the target _complete the mission_ _—_

"Hey!"

Bucky blinks. James is staring at him, and Bucky realizes that his water bottle has spilled all over. Water drips from his forearm to the floor.

Bucky slowly unclenches his right hand. He puts the cap back on the bottle. Sets it down.

Heads for the climbing wall.

 

*

 

"Where is Banner?"

Steve looks up from his sketchbook. "Banner?"

Bucky nods. "He has not been down in two days. Where is he?"

"Uh." Steve shakes his head a little. Bucky wonders why the question takes so much time to answer. "He's—uh, probably in his room. He might be having a bad day. Days," he amends quickly.

Bucky knows about bad days. He wonders why Banner—the calmest of the lot—has to deal with them too. And then he thinks about what he has seen of the other man, and recalls the tea he drinks with religious regularity. He follows a routine every morning, one that pastry incidents and petty squabbles can't disturb. Every morning, newspaper and tea. And Bucky had noticed that routine immediately, and so he only asks for sections of the paper after Banner is done with them.

Because the one time he hadn't, Banner had shown the faintest signs of panic.

So Bucky says, "Oh," and he leaves it at that.

Banner is back at dinner, and no one says a word. Not even James. That does not mean the meal is silent; Stark is a nonstop stream of chatter and Banner seems to be the usual recipient. Barton and Romanoff talk in multiple languages, occasionally dragging Steve and the others into their conversation.

Bucky feels his lips twitch when Romanoff calls Stark an idiot in three different languages. But he keeps an eye on Banner. He can't stop.

Because now he recognizes the plain features, the dark hair and average stature, things he hadn't noticed during his first few encounters with Banner when he had been too caught up in trying not to crawl out of his own skin.

Bruce Banner. Genius scientist who experimented with gamma radiation. Rendered the Hulk through an accident.

Bucky grits his teeth; he had been briefed about Banner. About the Hulk. Advised to immediately retreat upon sighting the green monster. Advised to sedate Banner if he encountered him on a mission. Banner was not a threat to HYDRA, not when he was on the run. But the Hulk is a threat to everyone—

"Buck?"

Steve is staring, his eyes pinched with concern. Bucky blinks. He does not know what prompted Steve to say his name, but it is enough to drag Bucky from the unpleasant memories of the briefing.

"I'm fine," Bucky says. He can feel the others' gazes, discreet though they may be. He needs to change their focus, and his eyes find Steve's plate.

A plate that still has a suspicious amount of food on it. He is speaking without realizing what he is saying.

"Stevie, are you seriously not finishing your food?"

Steve drops his fork. Bucky's mind goes to static.

Stark's voice interrupts the roaring in Bucky's ears.

"What do you mean, there's no dessert? JARVIS, get me the chocolate cake from that bakery down the street. The good one. And double the frosting. I want _sprinkles_."

Bucky focuses on him instead of the look on Steve's face, and Stark is just glaring at the ceiling as though he hadn't heard Bucky at all. Romanoff looks at Stark.

"Tony, you know I prefer marble."

"I'm pretty sure your preference is whatever I don't get," Stark retorts. "JARVIS, make it two cakes."

"Noted, sir."

 

*

 

"I don't understand," Bucky says, crossing his legs and watching the way the sheets on his bed rumple as a result. "Why would he do that?"

"He's a nice guy once you get past the parental issues, anxiety, and PTSD," James replies dryly. "I don't know, pal. I don't have all the answers, I just pretend to."

Bucky frowns, but he can't argue with that. James is supposedly him, after all. Anything Bucky doesn't know, James doesn't know.

"Except for all the stuff before Insight," James said.

Bucky's eye throbs. "Yeah. Except that."

"Technically."

"Why did he treat me like he did, then?" Bucky says. "Not introducing me to Hill even after I left the room. Left Steve's floor."

"Think about it," James says. "If you had met the head of security right away, what would you have thought?"

That he was threat. That they knew he was a threat.

And that is headache territory. The motors in the metal arm hum and Bucky knows he has to calm down, so he adjusts his position and tries to meditate as Sam had described.

Bucky takes a deep breath, focusing his mind and pushing thoughts of James and security and threats to one side. Static hums in every crevice of his mind, a terrible cold emptiness yawning in all the spaces Steve has not filled with his presence.

He drifts around the holes patched with shattered fragments of memories and finds a quiet space. Not silent, not oppressive, but quiet.

He stays there, gradually expanding his awareness to encompass his entire body, and then the room beyond. After an indeterminate amount of time, he pushes beyond the walls and listens to the occupants around the building with what his enhanced senses can glean.

Steve is the kitchen, his shifting hands causing the faint rustling of newspaper nearly drowned out by the sounds of food cooking.

Potts is in the elevator with a small entourage, their voices echoing through the vents. Bucky cannot hear Stark with her.

More familiar voices and sounds bounce around, sources unclear. None are threatening, though Bucky archives them for comparison later, just in case something new appears.

A person Bucky cannot identify is at the opening of a vent several floors down. Her presence is an uneasy note in the scheme of recognizable voices and Bucky tracks her movement until she drifts out of his awareness.

One second to draw back into himself, one more to get to the wall.

Three knocks.

"AI. Who is the woman three floors down."

"She is an employee, Sergeant. Eliza Manuel. I am sending her background and other relevant data to your device."

Bucky checks the phone. It is Stark's. Modified, but Bucky believes—if not in Stark—then in the AI. He has not found any bugs in the device, and JARVIS has not led him astray yet.

"And it's sassy," James says.

JARVIS has made good on his—its?—word, and sent the data. Bucky spends several minutes paging through it, and the exercise is as calming as the meditation. He finds no issue with the woman's background, though he will be keeping an eye on the hallways. A short patrol will be in order that night.

"Thank you."

"You're quite welcome."

Two knocks on the door, though Bucky had heard Steve approaching so he doesn't jump.

"Buck? I made breakfast. Scrambled eggs and bacon. There's sausage, but I wasn't sure if you would want any. Oh, and Banner dropped off some of your…smoothies."

"Smoothies? That's being generous," James mutters. "They're disgusting. Like expired beans covered in shoe leather and grass."

Bucky remembers worse things forced upon him. Testing his digestive limits, his resistance to poisons and other toxins. But Steve is waiting, so Bucky stands and slides the phone into his pocket.

"Coming."

Steve has moved back to the kitchen in the time it takes Bucky to get there, his back to Bucky while he stirs the eggs in the pan. Bucky suspects he has been waiting to see whether Bucky was really coming, but Bucky doesn't say anything.

"Are they better than last time, Steve?" Bucky asks when the silence becomes awkward.

Steve's ears go red. "Shut up. That was an accident."

Bucky's lips quirk. He and James speak in unison, saying, "Burning something like that is never an accident."

"Jerk. Serve yourself, then."

But hesitation jumps into place before his words, and Bucky hasn't missed the slight jolt that passes through Steve's posture in the microsecond before he stifles it.

"Hold on, don't withdraw," James says quickly. "Maybe it's fine. You just startled him. I'm sure it's okay."

Bucky thins his lips and Steve glances over, his own plate already full. He has an easy smile on his face, but his eyes betray him. "I think we drank the last of the orange juice the other day. I haven't been out to get more yet."

"Pardon me, Captain," JARVIS says, "but I can request some for you."

"Uh, no thanks. I like going to the market."

A person can live their entire lives indoors these days.

"Yeah, it used to be way different," James says. He's sitting on the counter. He leans and looks at the eggs. "To be fair, lotsa stuff is better now. And when it gets really cold, not having to go outside all the time will be nice."

It's only autumn. The real cold is still a month away.

Bucky notes that he will have to stock up on warmer clothes and blankets. He does not want to deal with freezing temperatures without proper protection. And the idea of exposing his skin to that—any part of him—sends shudders down his spine. Snow holds bad memories. Low temperatures, too.

Anything at all.

Fuck.

"Thanks, JARVIS. I'll keep your recommendations in mind."

"You're welcome, Captain."

Steve hands Bucky a plate and Bucky puts as much food as he feels comfortable eating on it. He then snags one of Banner's smoothies from the fridge, his mind flinching away from the color. The man had given him a list of ingredients, even allowed Bucky to watch him prepare the drinks, but Bucky will never be used to them.

"Say, Buck," Steve says after he finishes. Bucky glances up, a piece of bacon still hanging from between his lips. "You can finish chewing, you dope."

Bucky chews and swallows before raising an eyebrow in a silent bid for Steve to continue.

"I know you've got a thing for Tony's climbing wall, but—if you want—I'd be happy to spar with you. Nothing serious, but I wouldn't mind a warm-up buddy."

James snorts. "He needs a warm-up buddy like you need a stand for your sniper rifles. Convenient, but unnecessary."

Bucky ignores James. The last time he had considered changing his routine, he hadn't managed to implement any of the available alterations. But now Steve is offering, and in a way that Bucky can refuse if he feels it is necessary.

He can try. In any case, he does not want his skills to become too rusty. Part of that comes from the pieces in his mind that Bucky avoids, but he reminds himself that if he lets his skills degrade, he will become a hindrance to Steve. He does not want to be a hindrance to Steve.

(Something about that feeling is familiar, but the sensation slips away before he can focus on it.)

"I'll help you warm up," Bucky says. "I just have to change."

"Of course," Steve replies. "Meet in the gym in…ten minutes?"

Bucky nods. They finish their breakfasts quickly, and Bucky actually manages to chug the smoothie and not have any of it come back up.

He does not know exactly what the buzzing in the pit of his stomach is. It could be anxiety or anticipation.

Perhaps it is both.


	4. Queries

He could beat Steve to the gym but chooses to wait instead, finding a convenient excuse to delay in his shoes, which he ties four times—even pretending to get the lace caught in the finger plates on the metal hand—before he hears Steve heading for the elevator. Bucky catches the next ride down, and walks in right as Steve is beginning to do easy stretches to get his blood flowing.

Bucky follows suit silently, noting that no one else is around.

"Where are the others?" he asks while he and Steve find protective equipment. Steve reaches for a head guard but Bucky backpedals so fast he nearly trips and Steve leaves it be. Bucky repeats his question while his mind quiets down.

"I dunno. JARVIS?"

"Agents Barton and Romanoff, in the company of Thor and Mr. Stark, have gone to aid in disaster relief in the flood zones of Louisiana. A local villain upset the water balance before being taken down."

"I could have helped," Steve says.

"Mr. Stark suggested that it would be best if you remained here, Captain Rogers."

Bucky sees Steve stiffen slightly, watches the line between his eyebrows deepen.

"Tony..." Steve then sighs but lets the matter go. "I'll talk with him later. Ready, Buck?"

Bucky adjusts the gloves on his hands, inwardly questioning the point of having one on his left. Then he figures it is more for Steve's benefit than his, and nods.

They step onto the mat and Steve leads, beginning with a few soft jabs that Bucky easily blocks and turns aside. Striking back at Steve feels wrong on a level Bucky can't articulate, so for a while he settles into the rhythm of blocking and evading. They pick up the pace, but Steve caps it right as Bucky begins to sweat. From there Bucky's muscle memory takes over and before he realizes just what he's doing, he's returning some of Steve's punches with his own. None of them are vicious; they merely test Steve's defenses, force him to move around.

They step around each other to an unheard beat and Steve starts throwing in easy kicks, so Bucky reciprocates. None of their blows break through the other person's guard, but that isn't the point. As Bucky finds the best rhythm he realizes that this is familiar, that when he looks at Steve there is a ghostly image of a younger Captain America superimposed over him that fades when Steve suddenly switches tactics.

When Steve finally calls it quits, Bucky is sweating and breathing hard. Steve is too, and the grin he directs at Bucky is shockingly bright.

"Thanks, Buck. It's just not the same on my own."

"This is where you say you're welcome," James says, his teenage features pulled into a smile of their own.

"'s not a problem," Bucky says.

James shrugs. "Close enough."

"Say, Bucky," Steve says suddenly, "would you mind watching me fight Tony's bots? I feel like I'm missing a step here and there, but I don't know for sure."

"Aw, he wants to spend more time with you."

Bucky doesn't need James to state the obvious. He nods, then pauses. "I need to get water first."

Steve blinks, and then jumps into motion, quickly striding over to the wall. "One second. I know there's a—ah, here it is." A moment later, he tosses a bottle of water Bucky's way while holding onto one of his own. Behind him, the door of the cooler built into the wall swings shut with a soft _whoosh_.

The training room is on a different part of the floor than the gym, and Bucky has finished half his water by the time they make it there.

"There's an observation deck," Steve explains from the floor, pointing to the small bay of windows set higher in the walls. "JARVIS usually helps out, but…"

Bucky understands when Steve shrugs. A computer can do a lot, but another person can be better. Bucky suspects that Steve is not as trusting of technology as Stark and the rest.

"He did go through a war," James points out.

"I'll watch," Bucky says.

It is only when Bucky is behind the glass, his eyes on Steve, that a sense of familiarity fills his mind. Except now the feeling is frosty, and Bucky shudders with the effort of keeping the sudden tide of memories from overwhelming him. They used to watch him like this. Observe his every move, faceless behind their two-way mirrors and masks, dispassionate while he screamed—

"Ready?" Steve calls, his voice coming through the speakers. Bucky blinks and shakes his head a little. He is not theirs anymore; he is in the tower, he is here with Steve, and he volunteered for this. This was his decision. His choice.

"Ready," Bucky replies.

"JARVIS, start my program."

"Initiating Captain Rogers training sequence level two," JARVIS says.

Five robots enter the room through lifts in the floor. They are humanoid, with energy constructs attached to their mechanical limbs. Bucky's eyes flick to the ceiling, finding the projectors. He has no doubt that the bullets and lasers the robots fire are anything more than holograms. His heart clenches anyway when Steve dives into the fray and leaves his left side open _again_ —

"Duck, Steve, jeez," James mutters, his young features pressed up against the windows. "Turn—no, other way. Don't just—go for—on your left—"

While James keeps up the commentary, Bucky follows Steve's earlier instructions and looks for any faults, obvious or otherwise, in Steve's technique. Steve's style is much like street fighting; it is all about finishing the opponent quickly. There is little fancy flair added. All movement is purposeful.

"Of course it's like that," James mumbles. "The guy practically taught himself. Army training didn't do much for a guy like him, and then they put him on a costume tour for weeks. Any skills he's got were picked up."

Picked up and enhanced by the serum. Steve's moves, while not strictly professional, are more than enough to handle the bots even with the guns and laser swords.

"Well?" Rogers asks when he gets his breath back. He is looking up at the glass, and Bucky realizes that he expects the feedback now.

"Your left side is better," Bucky reports, "but your weight shifts too much to one side when you block on the left."

He can see Steve's lips turn down with disappointment. "Ah. Anything else?"

Bucky lists off a couple more observations, but Steve's technique is fairly sound.

"If it wasn't, he wouldn't have lasted against you on the helicarrier," James says. Bucky stiffens and whirls, but James has disappeared. A nascent headache throbs behind his right eye but he tries to ignore it.

"Would you like to try this, Buck?" Rogers asks. It's—strange. Very strange, to have Steve speaking to him like that. He sounds polite and cautious and strange.

James is not there anymore, but Bucky had been making decisions long before he became aware of the hallucination.

"Maybe later." _No_.

Steve just shrugs. "All right. JARVIS?"

"Beginning level three."

Bucky finds a chair and settles in to watch.

 

*

 

Free time is a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it is something he has not had for a long time. He can spend it as he pleases, under his own discretion. On the other, it is something he has grown unaccustomed to. If he's not careful, his mind wanders.

Fortunately he has books, access to the Internet, and a never-ending stream of interesting events occurring as a result of the other occupants in the building to keep him occupied.

For instance, he can hear distant shouting from the elevator shaft as Thor chases after Barton for a reason Bucky hadn't caught. Some of the things Barton yelps put the lines in Bucky's book to shame, and he listens until the voices fade from his hearing, covered up by the general noises of the common room on Steve's floor and the building itself.

"Those guys are weird," James says. The hallucination had reappeared several hours after Steve's training session without any indication that he had been gone at all.

"So are you," Bucky replies without turning his attention from the pages. Silence descends for several minutes.

And then, every so often, JARVIS will interrupt with news updates or interesting tidbits of information, something that Bucky had asked the AI to do once he realized that it sometimes helped to draw him out of his head. But this time is different than his normal routine.

"Excuse me, Sergeant. I have a query."

Bucky exchanges a look with James, who has one eyebrow raised and subsequently shrugs.

"Yeah?"

"On several occasions my sensors have picked up your speech patterns, but at those times you are speaking to an empty room. I have no record of behavior such as this in your files. Are you addressing me during these times?"

James snorts. "Found out already?"

Bucky shifts, unsure how to defend himself to the AI. Unsure whether he should try, but something tells him that James should remain his secret. Stark undoubtedly knows everything JARVIS does, and Bucky does not want him to know about James.

He is a soldier and a spy. He can lie.

"It helps me focus," Bucky says. "My mind wanders. Speaking helps bring it back."

True. Somewhat.

"I see. Mr. Stark exhibits similar actions. I now understand that this behavior can take various shapes. My apologies for disturbing you, Sergeant."

"It's fine."

The AI really is incredible. It learns in real time. Bucky would be intimidated if—

If what? He scratches at the memory and is rewarded by a flash of HYDRA briefings, his handlers updating him on new technology so their pet monster could be as deadly as possible.

He jerks away from those memories and returns his attention to the book. If he focuses hard enough on the words, he can ignore the fact that his right hand is shaking.


	5. Sideways

Bucky's room is quiet. If he listens, he can hear other people moving about the tower and the hum of the air conditioning units and other machinery. But no voices are loud enough to disturb Bucky as he pages through his notebook, every entry dated and labeled and even tabbed with color-coded slips as though all of that careful organization will help if he gets captured again.

"You never know," James says, and he's hanging half-off the bed with his head nearly touching the floor. The position cannot possibly be comfortable, but James doesn't seem inclined to move. "You're not gonna get captured again, anyway."

"You don't know that." Bucky turns a page, finds the picture of Captain America he had stumbled across in a run-down mart off the side of some highway. He thinks Captain America instead of Steve because there has to be a distinction there, right? Not as violent as the one between James Buchanan Barnes and the Soldier, but surely one exists.

"Even though Steve's been a stand-up guy no matter what he's wearing," James drawls. "I don't think it matters whether he's in spandex or sweats."

Bucky makes a noncommittal noise and keeps turning the pages until he finds the first blank one. There he puts down the latest scene he's remembered.

It isn't much; just impressions and blurry mental images. But Bucky remembers gravestones (a cemetery?) and the almost overwhelming need to make sure Steve isn't left alone, that Bucky is with him—

"'Till the end of the line," Bucky mutters, and suddenly he has context for that line outside of the helicarrier and it sets him back on his heels. Steve saying those words had shattered the Soldier like so much glass, leaving whatever personality remained to pick up the pieces, but Bucky hadn't known _why_ the words resonated. Just that they had.

A noise that does not fit in with the normal hubbub jerks Bucky from his thoughts. He reaches and taps the wall.

A pause. Longer than JARVIS normally needs. Bucky's heart begins to pound.

"Yes, Sergeant?"

Bucky hesitates. The sound is—strange. Metallic? It bounces around too much to be clear. Would the AI understand a vague question?

"What is that sound?"

Another pause. JARVIS's voice is distorted, skipping syllables.

"My apologies. My sensors are experiencing—"

The AI goes silent. Cut off in the same second as the lights. When the room plunges into darkness Bucky reacts instantly, jumping back and finding one of the knives hidden on his body. His metal arm is without power, limp and heavy at his side, but after a few seconds the gears and motors reset and begin functioning again. Bucky stays still and silent, trusting his ears more than his eyes. For almost a minute, nothing.

"That was a localized EMP," James mutters. "What's going on?"

Then the metallic skittering gets closer. It is definitely not normal, and now Bucky curses himself for not reacting to the oddities in JARVIS's behavior sooner.

He spots the tiny red glow in the vent and throws the knife before the robot can get in. It collapses in a shower of sparks with the blade buried in its glowing camera lens and Bucky draws a second blade but there are already three robots climbing into his room, and he starts to go for the door—

The robots have speakers; Bucky hears them crackle, and then a voice, a recording, _something_ speaks a word that slithers into Bucky's mind and locks it down, everything is cotton and he's on his knees, limp and unable to even focus his eyes—

It's warm but not, and Bucky tries to fight the frost holding him in place but nothing works. A switch in his brain has been pulled and now nothing moves, like this isn't even his body anymore—

James. He's—flickering? Between the grizzled soldier and something else, something that pulses like a knot of darkness in Bucky's hazy vision.

The robots are creeping closer now, picking their way across the floor, and even though Bucky can't make his eyes focus on them he can see the coloring and the curving lines that have to be the Hydra symbol etched into their black metal shells. The speakers crackle again. They are speaking to him. The voice is distorted, but Bucky can't think. Can't understand.

_"Did you really think you could hide, Soldat?"_

"Shut up," James growls.

_"We've always known where you are. Hydra is everywhere."_

Bucky's body can't shudder but his mind does the equivalent. Tendrils of fear snake through him.

He can't get captured.

Not here.

Not again.

Never again.

Steve.

_Help._

"No," James says, and the darkness grows deeper as a headache pulses within Bucky's brain, something stirring that sends waves of tension along his muscles and stirs nausea in his stomach but he can't stop it. He can't. Do anything. "I refuse. _We_. Refuse."

Bucky's fear shivers and anger eclipses it. He has been with Steve for weeks. He knows who he is. Who he was. Who he wants to be.

He is James Buchanan Barnes, and he will not be controlled again.

He strains against the word burning like a commandment in his brain and his headache worsens, a distant feeling that he shouldn't resist, that he needs to obey humming in his brain but Bucky takes that feeling and crams it into a box, buries that box in his head and locks it away where it can't do anything but burn. He grasps for anything that will force his muscles to move, anything at all.

James shakes.

The robots are closer. One has a syringe in its metal claws.

Were there more? Were they going after Steve?

The needle sends a fresh wave of panic through Bucky and he screams in his own mind, thrashing against the bonds until James finally turns and the darkness has _his face_ and James is yelling something, panicking, no _don't_ —

The world tilts sideways and then rights itself.

The panic disappears. Fury takes its place, and the Soldier stands. He has no orders that he can remember, no briefing to guide him or mission parameters. But he is ordered to defend himself in the absence of a handler. These robots are a threat. They have the symbol of allies but they are threats.

Threats will be eliminated.

He reduces the small robots to scrap in an instant, but takes the syringe. It could be useful.

(Why?)

The Soldier turns away from the bots. There will be more; the threat must be eliminated. The mission is to—

(What?)

The halls are empty. So are the rooms. The Soldier finds six more robots and destroys them. One slashes at his metal arm with rusty claws. The Soldier snaps the claws and then the robot.

(What is the mission? Where is the handler?)

Moonlight spills in from the windows but the Soldier could have seen without it. He reaches the elevator and finds two more machines scratching at the cables. He leaves the smoking carcasses in the hallway and goes down, a directive he does not remember receiving guiding him to the common floor.

(A directive but no mission no handler _what_ —)

There are twenty-four robots on the common floor. The Soldier sees three individuals fighting the robots: a woman and two men. The woman fights with electrical weapons, while one man fights with arrows and the other with kitchenware.

Presumed allies, if they fight the threats. Further threat potential can be determined once the immediate threat is eliminated.

(You _know_ them—)

The last man speaks.

"So happy you could join us, Terminator. Mind helping?"

The words do not line up. They are not an order, or a directive. They are mere noise. The Soldier ignores them and focuses on the robots.

As the last robot is destroyed the Soldier realizes the people in the room are watching him.

He lets the robot drop from the metal hand and assesses the individuals for any signs of threats.

"Hey, Frosty, no need to glare. We're all friends here."

Allies confirmed.

(No, no, _listen_ we're not—)

More noise. The woman speaks.

"Tony, did any robots reach Barnes's room?"

"I don't know."

"They're Hydra, Tony. What if—"

"Oh. _Oh_. Shit."

The Soldier dismisses them. There are more robots; he can hear them in the vents. There must be a way to draw them out.

He goes to the kitchen. The sounds follow him. The robots must be tracking the Soldier. How.

The Arm? Possible.

The Soldier waits. When the robots come, he destroys them. When no more come, the Soldier waits once more.

(For what?)

Another person has entered the room. The Soldier turns.

The person is not either of the men from the previous room. The man is—

(Steve.)

—tall. Blond. A threat?

"Buck."

The man is looking at the Soldier. Addressing him? Is this man the handler?

"Bucky. I know you're in there."

Bucky?

(You.)

The Soldier blinks. In his head there is static and fire and chaos but this is normal, this is within mission parameters but there is no mission there is no handler and this man—

"Please, Buck. I don't know what those bots did, but I know you're stronger than they are. Please."

(Steve. Steve, I'm—)

The Soldier's breathing is irregular. The metal arm whirs, the fingers spasming.

(Bucky. _I'm_ Bucky.)

"Just—come back. Please." The man (Steve) hesitates. He searches the Soldier's (Bucky's, we're _Bucky_ listen to me _please_ ) face. "You know me."

He does. But he can't speak. Can't move.

He falls, the haze in his brain returning as the fury burns out.

Everything fades to black.

 

*

 

"—codes. They predate me."

"But we have a recording. You can—"

"I can't work miracles. I need time."

 

*

 

_"_ проснуться _,_ солдат."

 

*

 

"—don't care, Tony. We're not locking him up. Bucky wouldn't—"

"He wasn't Bucky two hours ago, Rogers."

"Don't 'Rogers' me. He's my friend." 

 

*

 

"Слушать, солдат."

  

*

 

"Come on, Barnes. проснуться."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If any of you happen to speak Russian, feel free to correct anything in here. In order, the Russian says: "Wake up, soldier." "Listen, Soldier." "Wake up."


	6. Echoes

At first he doesn't dream. He is trapped in his own mind, unable to even perceive the outside world except through sound. He would panic if his heart could pound, if his throat could constrict. But he can't.

Then something shifts. The woman— _Natasha, Agent Romanoff, you know her—_ is running through lists of words and some of them hurt but one slides into place like a key in a lock and when it turns Bucky falls from purgatory into sleep.

The nightmares do not follow any kind of order and some of them might be memories but they are all twisted and broken things, dragging themselves across his mind like nails on a chalkboard and he can't turn away _—_

He wakes when the robots cut his throat. His skin is slick with sweat, the sheets tangled around his arms and legs. The room is dark but light seeps in from around the curtains.

A nightmare. There are no robots in his room. They were simply his imagination.

One breath. Two.

There are no robots.

Once Bucky knows he is not about to panic, he looks around again and spots Steve.

Steve is asleep in the desk chair, head tilted back at an awkward angle and legs splayed out. He looks moments away from falling.

Seeing him so calm lets Bucky (he's Bucky now, he has to be) breathe easier, and he does one more check of the room in case he missed anything. But it's still his room, with no changes except a new grate by the vent. Bucky can't be sure, but it appears sturdier than the one that the robots had broken.

(There are no robots. _There are no more robots._ )

James is leaning against the wall by the door, his arms crossed and his eyes closed. Bucky can't tell whether he is asleep or simply resting.

For a second, another image superimposes itself over James, and Bucky catches a glimpse of long hair, a mask—

Bucky shifts and James's head shoots up. No mask, just grit and tired eyes. "Good, you're awake."

Bucky doesn't want to risk waking Steve yet. He uses sign language to ask what happened. James grins, but the expression droops at the corners.

"You know, I can practically read your mind. Sign language isn't necessary."

Bucky frowns.

"Right, sorry." He takes a deep breath. "HYDRA robots. Recorded messages with sleeper codes. We didn't break the programming, just…resisted it, for a while. Agent Romanoff apparently found the counter codes while we were semiconscious."

Resisted? Bucky doesn't want to go back to what happened but he does, gingerly poking around.

Something in the back of his mind stirs, turning over and flipping Bucky's insides. He pulls back and grits his teeth against the sudden nausea rolling through him.

James looks as uncomfortable as Bucky feels. "We got a little desperate. And we—we couldn't hold it back anymore."

It.

"The Soldier," James says. He pauses, grasping for the right words. "It's—he's—not really? A separate personality. We're a prism with many sides, and he's just another face. A dangerous face. The HYDRA robots, the sleeper codes—they drew him out, overwhelming us."

"Us?" Bucky signs. "Then who are we?"

James shrugs. "James Buchanan Barnes. What's left of him, anyway."

"And the Soldier?"

"I don't even know. It's more complicated than I can explain. But you can feel him, right? I think—I think it'll get better for us, over time. The Soldier'll always be there, but he…he won't be HYDRA's. And maybe he'll lose shape and form, and we can be whole again."

Whole. Not fractured into Bucky and James and the Soldier.

Sure.

Bucky lies back down. His body is heavy, and his mind is tired. Steve is still sleeping, and Bucky does not want to wake him. He hasn't missed the dark circles under Steve's eyes, the signs of his worry bleeding through the super soldier serum.

You can't fool me, pal.

 

*

 

When he wakes up the second time, Steve is still asleep. But he has changed position, and his soft snores bounce around the room. The curtains are slightly parted, and evening light spills through the gap. Bucky can see a sketchbook haphazardly placed on Steve's lap, the pencil already on the floor.

Bucky feels the need to grab the pencil and put it on the desk.

A memory—

_"Jeez, Stevie, if you keep losin' these pencils you're never gonna finish your drawings."_

_"Oh shut up. I don't lose 'em that much."_

Biting words, but the memory is soft. Bucky holds it until it fades, but he knows he will be able to recall it if necessary. Something about the words is off; Steve, losing pencils? Maybe now, but then…Then was the Depression, and the Soldier had been briefed on that and Bucky had lived it, and sure it was nothing but impressions and pieces but there was no way Steve would really lose anything like a pencil.

"He usually had at least one pencil and small notebook on him at all times," James offered. "Even when he got into a fight. They, uh. Didn't last long."

Bucky can see the result of that as picture-flashes of a tiny Steve flutter through his mind's eye. But why would Steve fight?

"Why do you think? Some punk'd be causin' trouble, and Steve could never let it slide."

_"I had him on the ropes."_

_"Sure you did, pal. Let's get you patched up."_

Bucky silently slides out of bed, his bare feet resting on the soft carpet floor. Steve hasn't stirred, and Bucky wonders just how tired he really is.

The pencil is returned to its rightful place on the desk, and, when the sketchbook inevitably begins to slide off Steve's legs, Bucky catches it too.

He can't help looking at what is drawn on the page.

The half-finished drawing in pencil is and isn't of Bucky; he is in the picture, turned away from Steve but with most of his form hidden by sheets and hair. But the focus is on the room around Bucky, with the most attention devoted to the bedside table and the precarious stack of books atop it.

Some of those he hasn't read yet. Bucky makes a mental note to do that, and then wonders whether it would be ethical to page through Steve's drawings.

"Go for it."

Bucky suspects James is a bad influence.

He goes for it.

Most of the drawings are landscapes or cartoons. There is Wilson, flying among what appear to be seagulls, looking oddly pleased. The two agents are sketched as well, poised to fight indistinct foes. Even Banner and Stark are drawn seated across from each other at a small table, discussing something with avid interest while their drinks are left neglected.

When Bucky gets to the end, he looks up.

Steve is awake and staring. Bucky immediately freezes, guilt crashing through him even though Steve doesn't look mad.

"Sorry—" Bucky starts.

"No, it's fine," Steve says. "I don't mind you paging through them. You used to do that, sometimes."

Even though Steve is relaxed and his voice gentle, Bucky hands the notebook back.

"What happened?" Bucky asks.

Steve takes his time flipping the sketchbook closed. Bucky knows he's delaying but doesn't want to push the issue. He doesn't fidget or twitch; his body knows how to be still even when his mind won't stop moving.

Eventually, Steve sighs. "HYDRA bots broke in, tracking you through a tracer in your arm. One released a localized EMP burst that knocked out most of the tower's systems. A second burst took out the power and defenses."

"The robots should've been fried too," Bucky says, recalling how the metal arm had regained functionality very quickly. Steve shrugs.

"Tony was saying something about quick restarts. Most of it went over my head. But they were designed to be hit by an EMP and recover quickly. When they reached you—I'm guessing, by the way, we don't know exactly what happened—they must have hit you with prerecorded sleeper codes."

"Prerecorded?" Bucky echoes. Steve nods.

"No one was controlling those robots, Buck. HYDRA doesn't know you're here. Those bots were old, at least a year. They ran on sensors. Tony traced the signal to a HYDRA base we hit months ago _—_ it was as empty as the day we left it. The guys originally monitoring those robots weren't around to see them find you."

The news should be comforting. It isn't. Bucky's skin still crawls at the memory of those things advancing on him, their sick metal legs extending like claws.

He shakes his head a little and tries to focus.

"If they were tracking me, then how _—_ "

He can't finish the question. If that, then how had—how would they find him? If no one was controlling the robots, how would HYDRA know when the bots actually ran into Bucky?

"You had a syringe," Steve said, his voice dropping with anger. "With you, I mean. When we found you. It belonged to HYDRA and contained nanites. Designed to act as millions of tiny trackers. Almost impossible to remove. Suspended in a heavy sedative solution."

Bucky shudders, drawing away from Steve even though he's the warmest thing in the room. He goes to his bed with its familiar sheets and mattress still warm from his body heat.

He would never have been able to get away. There would have been no escape, no place to hide, no identity to assume. It would have been over.

He shudders again and then rallies. That _hadn't_ happened. He was still free. Safe. As safe as he could be.

Only when he nods does Steve continue.

"Tony's secured that syringe. HYDRA won't be getting it back. The robots have been melted down." Steve pauses, his discomfort clear. Bucky narrows his eyes. Steve isn't saying something.

"Steve."

Bucky remembers most of what happened, but there are fuzzy spots.

"Steve, did I hurt anyone."

"What? No, no. No, you didn't. Just the robots."

Bucky can remember voices talking over him when he was semiconscious. "Stark wanted to lock me up."

"He was worried," Steve says.

"About me hurting him. Hurting the people he cares about."

Steve's lips thin. "Buck. It wasn't you."

"That's why he was worried."

Steve can't hold eye contact and he casts his gaze to the ceiling. But something else is bothering him other than Bucky's head problems.

"Steve."

"Yeah?"

"What aren't you telling me?"

Is that—guilt? Bucky knows something is wrong and while he trusts Steve he knows Steve can't be everywhere and maybe someone else—

"Bucky! It's okay. I'm right here."

He's shaking. Bucky feels pressure on his chest but as Steve hovers it gradually dissipates until Bucky can breathe again. He grits his teeth and glares at Steve.

"What. Happened?"

For a second Steve just stares, and for that second Bucky thinks he isn't going to say at all, that he's going to be like _them_ and say it isn't important, that what happens to _his_ body when _he's_ unconscious isn't _his_ problem. The metal arm is shifting, the plates adjusting with dangerous clicks—

"Tony removed the trackers in your arm when you were unconscious," Steve says. "I was there the whole time. He didn't do anything except remove the trackers, and he put the arm back together exactly as it was. He never even touched the rest of you, I swear."

Bucky blinks. That's it? He looks down at the Arm. It appears normal. He flexes it; it functions normally. There is no sign of tampering. The internals are wired to his nervous system; if there was something wrong, he would know.

_"Can't have a weapon that doesn't recognize damage."_

"I'm sorry, Buck," Steve is saying. "I know we should've asked, but Tony said it was better to do it as soon as possible in case there were more bots."

Bucky returns his gaze to Steve, who is looking at him so earnestly it hurts.

But.

"That's not all of it."

Steve's shoulders tense. Not enough for regular eyes to notice, but Bucky frowns.

"Tony had to do some scans," Steve says. "Of your arm. To find the trackers."

Bucky expects that. Better than the scientist poking around in there. The gears in the metal arm whir and Bucky nods for Steve to continue. But Steve is no longer just uncomfortable; something else weighs on his shoulders. Anger?

Had Bucky done something?

"Steve said you didn't hurt anyone," James says, but even he sounds unsure.

Maybe Bucky had destroyed something. Steve had not said anything about hurting any _thing_. Just any _one_.

The need to know has his heart pounding. Is Steve mad? Disappointed?

Steve sighs and when his eyes meet Bucky's they are a mix of anger and frustration, but none of it is directed at Bucky.

"Buck, those scans—what they picked up—how the hell are you still _standing?_ "

He's sitting, but the tension drains from Bucky so quickly it leaves him giddy. The sound that busts from him isn't quite a laugh and Steve's expression switches to startled.

The metal arm arm. Steve is worried about the goddamn metal arm. Bucky didn't hurt anyone. Steve is just—

He's just—

It's a _metal fucking arm,_ Rogers _._

Bucky didn't hurt anyone. He feels lightheaded and he knows there is something wrong with that feeling, that he shouldn't be this relieved that Steve isn't mad at _him_ , but right now he doesn't care.

"Luck," Bucky manages, and his lips have twisted into something that definitely isn't a smile. He sees Steve wince and guilt overtakes the groundless mirth, leaving Bucky quiet. He focuses on his breathing for a minute until his heart is no longer racing and his thoughts aren't running rampant.

Even James is staring. Steve looks conflicted. Bucky can't meet his eyes.

"Sorry," Bucky says.

"It was my fault. A dumb question." Steve takes a deep breath. "I just—does it hurt? Your body?"

Pain levels? Bucky does a quick check. Nothing unusual.

"No," he says.

Steve looks like he doesn't believe Bucky, but Bucky knows that there is nothing he can say that will truly convince him.

After a moment that stretches on too long, Steve gets to his feet.

"Is there anything you need, Buck?"

Bucky licks his lips. "Water? Please," he adds quickly.

"Be back in a minute."

 

*

 

It's a drawn-out bad moment, getting dressed, getting into the elevator, making his way to the common room, and opening himself to the scrutiny of the others.

The others he hadn't even recognized as the Soldier.

But as Bucky finds his spot on the couch and opens his book, no one says a word. Even with Stark and Banner in the room, no chatter fills the air. The silence makes Bucky's skin itch.

Then Banner mentions something about magnetic field potential to Stark, and their low voices soon fill the vacant spaces in the room.

Bucky looks at the words on the page and doesn't read any of them.

But he comes back down the next day, and he manages a few pages. A few more after that.

He never stays when the two agents come in. As he gets in the elevator, James confronts him.

"C'mon, pal, you can do better."

Bucky's mind is twisting in on itself and he can only shake his head.

"I know the Soldier is still there. But if you don't get used to it you're never gonna do it."

Bucky shakes his head again. He knows—knows to the pit of his stomach—that pushing things will not help. Not yet, maybe not ever. And he looks at James and shakes his head, and it's final. He will do this his way: slowly.

When he tries to sleep he hears metal in the vents, but when he looks, there is nothing there.

There is nothing there.

 

*

 

Steve has to go on missions, of course. Bucky watches him wind himself up into a frenzy for over a week after the attack until Steve can't even sit down. Stark is no help; once he fixes the problems in the Tower he sets to exacting revenge on HYDRA for presuming to think that the Tower was a viable target, and he enlists Steve's help to track down HYDRA because Steve knows their patterns. But Stark avoids talking to Bucky.

Which is understandable.

So Steve paces and Bucky gets a headache watching him. When Steve hears that Stark has passed him up for another mission (the target of which Steve helped to locate) his patience snaps. Bucky is there when it happens; they are in the shooting range, competing to see who can hit the most bull's-eyes. So far, Bucky is winning.

It's calming, somehow. To fire a gun and watch the bullet hit its target—reassuring. He can do this. He can defend himself. He will not be made a victim again. He will not allow himself to be made a victim again.

When he hits the mark with the last bullet in his magazine, Bucky sets down the gun and glances at Steve. The competition has pushed the restless light in Steve's eyes aside but Bucky knows it will be back in minutes.

"You're incredible, Buck," Steve says, setting his own weapon down. Bucky hit the mark every time. Steve was wide fewer than six times.

Bucky nods, though his muscles crawl. Of course he's incredible. He was made to be incredible. Molded.

Steve stretches, his gaze wandering around the range. "I think I'm gonna go talk to Tony."

Curiosity—still new to Bucky, still strange in how he doesn't have to ignore it anymore or risk punishment—unfurls in Bucky's head. "About what?"

"Uh…" Steve looks conflicted for a moment, and then he meets Bucky's gaze. "HYDRA activity around the city. Tony's been going after them more since the…robot attack. He's a little stung."

Stung.

"Do you—y'know, wanna come with?"

Come with. As in, assume a more active role against HYDRA.

"Your current existence is an act against HYDRA," James points out. "Why not spit in their eye a little more? Especially after that goddamn robot attack. You can prove that you aren't helpless. So why not?"

Because part of Bucky's mind has gone to static because the Soldier resists the idea because Bucky might have to leave the tower because he can't handle that yet.

James sighs. "I know pushing it with the whole interaction thing was too much. But here—please, just try. You can always leave if it's too much."

By now Steve is visibly fidgeting. Bucky would be too, if stillness was not fused to his bones. He wonders if his anger at HYDRA—if the blind rage he knows is there—will surface. It hasn't yet, maybe because Bucky hasn't thought about it or because there hasn't been an opportunity. But his mind is piecing itself together still, and anger will always tear apart instead of heal.

Unless HYDRA taught him that. Unless that was a way for them to control him—

"Yeah, I'll go," Bucky says before his thoughts can drag him away.

"Excuse me, Captain Rogers." The voice of JARVIS fills the room. "But Mr. Stark is currently away."

"Away?" Steve repeats, his eyes fixing on a random point on the wall. Bucky watches Steve for lack of a better place to focus his eyes. "Where?"

"Mr. Stark, Agents Romanoff and Barton, Mr. Wilson, and Thor are currently away on a mission in the Alps. They are expected back here in eleven hours and forty-two minutes."

Bucky sees Steve go rigid and stays silent as the anger bleeds into his shoulders. He remembers Steve talking about going on a mission mere days ago. Remembers his pacing, his mounting frustration at nothing.

"How long ago did they leave?" Steve asks, his words clipped and angry. "And why didn't they tell me?"

"They left this morning, at 4:45. Mr. Stark ordered me not to inform you of the mission until after it took place during the planning stages."

Bucky watches Steve cycle through several stages of emotion until he finally reaches up with both hands and scrubs his hair. "God, Tony. Why are you doing this?"

Steve continues to vent for three minutes until he realizes that Bucky is still there.

He tries at a smile and doesn't quite make it. "Guess we'll have to postpone the meeting, Buck."

Bucky isn't as disappointed as Steve is. "Yeah."

"Eloquent as always," James says.

 

*

 

Bucky isn't around when Steve confronts Tony. He supposes that's fair; this is between Steve and Tony. But he knows that part of this is also about him. Steve has been spending all of his time with Bucky. Bucky hasn't missed the concerned glances from the other Avengers. He knows that if he confronts Steve, Steve won't understand. He'll think Bucky is trying to push him away because he doesn't want Steve to be so close. The jerk never thinks of himself.

Bucky is around when Steve comes back. Steve's steps are heavy on the floor and when he walks in the tension his shoulders carry fills the room and Bucky sets down his book to free up his hand because—

"Do you want anything?" Steve asks after working his jaw. "I'm going to the store."

Bucky can see the unspoken invitation. _Come with me._ And then he can guess what Stark had said to Steve; the genius had called Steve out on his…what, obsession? Dependence? _Something_ with Bucky. And he had done it in a way that set off every defense mechanism Steve had.

"Should we go with him?" James asks. His young face is pulled into a puzzled expression. "I mean, he looks…mad."

Bucky can't figure out all the emotions simmering beneath the surface of Steve's skin and that makes static in his head. He meets Steve's eyes anyway.

"I don't want anything."

Something in Steve's eyes flickers, and he deflates a little. But he doesn't appear sad or disappointed, just tired. And angry.

"I'll—see you in a bit."

He leaves. Bucky's eyes skate over to the counter in their kitchen, where he can see Steve's wallet. He glances at James, who shrugs, and then gets up. In a few seconds he has the wallet in his hands. There is a picture inside—a snapshot of a young man facing the camera, the photo in black and white. A grin on the man's dusty face and the butt of a gun just barely visible in the lower corner. His eyes are impossibly bright.

Bucky's world inverts and he falls.

 

*

 

It's dark and muggy and Bucky can hear Dugan's snoring from two tents away. He rolls over and closes his eyes, wondering how he can hear the consistent _ngh-snght_ sound over the thunder of far-off artillery.

He does try to sleep. Rolling over and over, adjusting his position and even turning completely around. Nothing helps. Every time he starts to drift off, phantom pains rip through his body and he can feel his skin burning away, hear his screams rending the air. He has to rub his wrists to make sure that there are no straps holding them down, has to look around to make sure there are no men with cold eyes and colder hands nearby.

"Shit," Bucky mutters, and sits up. He can't take this. Tomorrow they march again for another mission and Steve's gonna throw himself in the way of too many fucking bullets and Bucky's gonna be way too fucking far away to do anything if some fucking HYDRA goon slips past Steve's guard because yeah he's good but Bucky knows Steve and a sniper can't do anything after the fact and he can't fucking help anyone at all if he's fucking tired from not fucking sleeping.

Bucky gets up, the one-man tent forcing him into an awkward crouch as he grabs his pack.

For a long, long time he crouches there, pack in one hand but his eyes on the entrance. He could go, right now. Head over to Steve's tent. Wake the big lug up. Watch the sleep drain from his eyes and tell him—

Tell him that he isn't okay, that his bones are shattered and don't fit right under his skin, that his lungs are too big and his head too small for his brain. That the world isn't the same as it was before Azzano, that Bucky is fucking scared of what they've done to him, that it's eating him up inside and nothing helps, not the card games nor the shared meals nor the miles and miles of travel because the world is coming through with shades of gray that weren't there before.

But he doesn't. He just shuffles through the pack, pulls out a worn notebook and pencil he'd lifted from the command tent however many weeks ago. Flips to the newest page, writes _I can't_ and stops, because there's so much that could come after that and he just crosses it out and writes _I'm scared_ instead because that is easier.

He's scared, there are people dying in the distance, and Dugan is still fucking snoring.


	7. Picture This

There are more flashes. A woman with a smile that cuts; Steve staring at her with something Bucky doesn't recognize in his eyes; a general with exhaustion lining his features; a genius with a knack for trouble; a group of soldiers who laugh and bleed in equal measure.

He wakes up.

He's on the floor. A glance at the clock shows that only thirteen minutes have passed. Steve's wallet is open in front of his face, the picture of James Barnes still grinning at him.

Bucky sits up. He shuts the wallet, puts it back on the counter. His hand is shaking. The metal one is steady but cold and when Bucky gets to his feet he has to brace himself against the counter to avoid falling from sudden dizziness.

There had been a picture behind the one of him. Bucky takes a few deep breaths. After a minute he checks the wallet again, sees the picture behind his own. The sharp woman's profile stares at him, a smile on her face as though she knows there is a gun pointed at Bucky's head that he can't see.

He can't remember her name, but she has to be important if she's in Steve's wallet.

_He's_ in Steve's wallet.

Breathe.

"Are you quite all right, Sergeant?"

He jumps at the sound of JARVIS's voice. There are knives in his hands. When did he—

"Hey, you're okay," James says. "Just JARVIS. We're in the Tower. Steve just left."

Bucky blinks, shakes his head. Puts the knives away. "I'm fine."

"As you say."

He is alone again. Steve is—at the store. Or venting. Bucky doesn't know, and he can't bring himself to care.

Bucky goes to his room. He doesn't turn on the lights. He kicks the door closed and falls into bed only after he sweeps the room and god _dammit_ he wishes his muscles didn't crawl at the thought of walking into a room without expecting an attack.

He closes his eyes.

Go the fuck to sleep, Barnes, he thinks.

Somehow, he does.

 

*

 

When Steve comes back five hours and thirty-two minutes later, Bucky can smell the sweat dried on his clothes and see the tiredness bunched under his eyes.

Bucky had woken an hour ago. He has moved back to the couch, a book in his hand that he is not reading. Time has passed in fits and starts since the picture and so when Steve enters Bucky nearly drops the book (he manages to set is down on the cushion before he really does drop it) and stands while doing a poor job of hiding his surprise and worry.

"Steve?"

The blond falls into one of the armchairs and releases a sigh befitting his super-soldier lungs.

"I'm sorry for bailing on you. And for not actually getting groceries." He looks genuinely guilty.

"Of course he's guilty," James says. "God forbid Steven Grant Rogers have emotions."

Pal.

"There's still food in the pantry," Bucky says.

"Yeah, I guess. Still. I shouldn't have left you."

Bucky doesn't have to look at James to know what expression he is making. Bucky instead frowns at Steve, even though it twists his stomach to do so. "I can handle myself, Steve. I think I can go a few hours on my own."

"I was gone for almost six."

"Only if you round up."

"Bucky—"

"Steve." Bucky glances to the side, unable to meet Steve's eyes anymore. He searches for a new topic; Steve is clearly tired, which means he won't have the energy to feel guilty. So Bucky goes with the question that has been hanging in the back of his mind for days now. "Why were you angry earlier?"

Steve shifts. "Tony and I—"

"Not that," Bucky interrupts. If he doesn't bring this up now, he never will, and it will bug him until he can't take it anymore. "The scans." He indicates his metal arm. "You were angry about the arm."

Steve shakes his head a little, his worry lines getting deeper. Bucky can see him juggling the words in his head, trying to decide the best way to phrase them. But then Bucky shifts and sees Steve give up on that. "The way that it's anchored to your body. All the metal. Replaced muscle. And the way they had to change your body to counterbalance—" He stops. Continues. "It's just. Awful." Another pause. "Inhumane."

They didn't do it so badly that Bucky can't function, Bucky feels inclined to point out. But he knows that is the wrong thing to say, so he searches for something else. Steve has answered the question and he's still looking awful; he needs to be distracted from whatever guilt is still eating at him.

"You left your wallet on the kitchen counter."

"What? Oh. Thanks. I'll—I'll get it in a sec."

"He's doing the thing," James says. "I don't know exactly what Stark said to him, but it hit Steve where it hurts. He's drawing into himself."

Bucky can't watch Steve do this. He clears his throat. "I remembered something, earlier." _While you were gone_ goes unsaid.

Steve meets his eyes. There is a desperate need there for a split second and then it is shoved away and Bucky doesn't know what to make of the fact that his memory pulls Steve back to reality so readily other than that it sits in his stomach like a stone. "Can I ask what it was?"

Bucky nods, bracing himself. He can recount the episode in the tent, describe what happened. But that is a bad memory, one that Steve doesn't know about and shouldn't because clearly the old James Barnes hadn't wanted Steve to know about it even before this current clusterfuck.

So he goes with the memory that comes first to his tongue, one that he hopes will make Steve feel better.

"There was a woman. Sharp smile."

Steve's eyes narrow. "A woman? One of your girlfriends?"

Bucky shakes his head. "I—no. If anyone's, yours."

"Peg?" Steve says, and he speaks as though saying her name too loudly will chase Bucky's memories away. "You remember Peggy?"

Her name stirs something more in Bucky's head but he shakes it off. "That's her name?"

Steve nods. "I—we—Peggy, yeah. Margaret Carter. She hated it when someone she was close to used her full name."

Bucky's memory convulses so hard that his metal arm jerks in protest but Bucky isn't in the room anymore.

"They sent me after her," Bucky says, and his voice is far away and he can see his hands but not really, because in them is a rifle and he is on a rooftop staring down the sights at a woman with hair like muted fire and lips that bleed when she smiles.

He sees her stop, turn, her back now facing him and he tightens his finger on the trigger because from here it will be a clean shot through her heart.

The blood will spray down her shirt, a red stream—

A red dress—

"I couldn't do it," Bucky says, blinking. He closes his hands into fists. This isn't right, stop talking. This isn't what he wanted, Steve—

He remembers frustration, confusion. Flashes of images he did not understand because they were not important for the mission. "Three times. Three failures. The second time—she…" She what? She did something. He can't remember fuck stop _talking_ —"Fired back. She shot me."

From a distance, facing the sun. He had picked his location because anyone looking would be blinded, but she had noticed and fired back. Hit him in the arm. Shoulder. Metal on metal, but enough to distract. He had fled to avoid detection.

He had been punished. But where the Winter Soldier failed, no one else would succeed.

Margaret Carter had slipped through HYDRA's grasp.

Bucky says as much before he finally gets control over his voice again, and Steve gets a look on his face that is at once proud and devastated and sad.

"Buck," he starts, and Bucky realizes what's coming and he's standing somehow and when Steve gets up he backs up a step, he's searching for a way out and his heart is pounding. He can't talk about this anymore. He hadn't meant to talk about it in the first place. It was supposed to be happy. To help. To comfort.

Steve freezes and the small amount of pride is swallowed up in an instant. Bucky feels cold but knows he can't stay, knows that staying will make things worse and he has to go, now.

"I'm sorry," he says, stepping back again. Steve reaches out and Bucky tenses.

Steve drops his hand.

Bucky flees.

 

*

 

Later that night, when moonlight is seeping through Bucky's curtains, Steve knocks.

"Buck? Can I come in?"

In theory, Bucky should be asleep. Of course he isn't, but the idea that he should be is what keeps him awake. So he turns his head to watch the door.

"Yeah."

The door opens and light from the hallway spills in around Steve's silhouette. Bucky sits up, propping himself against a pillow and ignoring the way his heart rate picks up.

"Can I sit?" Steve asks, gesturing to the bed. Bucky bites his lip.

"Let's give him a chance," James says. "It's Steve. He's not gonna hurt us."

Right. But Bucky might hurt him with more memories that cut like broken glass.

He takes a deep breath. Nods.

"Can I turn on the lights?"

Bucky knows what he looks like. The dark circles under his eyes, hair that should have been washed days ago. Clothes rumpled beyond repair thanks to hours spent lying in them. His appearance would just make Steve feel worse.

"No."

They can both see well enough in the dark, anyway. Bucky knows that Steve's serum enhanced his vision, possibly more than Bucky's. But the lack of light is just enough of a barrier to make Bucky feel less nervous.

When Steve sits, the entire bed dips and Bucky watches the soft light from the hallway paint grooves into his face. For a while, Steve doesn't say anything. He fiddles with the hem of his shirt and stares at the opposite wall.

Then he squares his shoulders and glances at Bucky, and his expression is pained but his tone is gentle.

"Today was a bad day. And I—I really appreciate that you tried to help, Bucky. You didn't have to. And I'm—I'm sorry that I couldn't keep it together, and I made you think there was something wrong. You didn't deserve anything like that. So…I am so sorry. Can we agree that today was shitty, and tomorrow is another chance?"

Bucky doesn't need to look at James. He carefully shifts to sit next to Steve. The gesture is awkward; Steve's height is wrong and sitting makes the angle strange but he grabs Steve by the shoulder, close to his neck, and squeezes a little. It's awkward with the metal arm, hard to judge how much pressure is enough. He goes by Steve's expression and then stops after a few seconds.

"Yeah. I'd like that."

Steve's eyes water and he returns the gesture, but when he pauses in response to Bucky stiffening Bucky shakes his head.

"It's okay."

Steve looks like he desperately wants to say something, _do_ something, but he pushes it down.

"I'm gonna go to bed," Steve says, standing. Bucky's shoulder feels cold. "Let me know if you need anything, okay?"

"Okay."

Bucky visits Steve two hours later. Steve is sleeping, limbs tossed among the covers and his chest rising and falling with a smooth, steady rhythm. He has a beanbag chair in one corner of his room. It's big, soft, and obnoxiously Steve. Getting into it without disturbing Steve is a challenge, but Bucky manages. He falls asleep in that chair, somehow. Not for long; he wakes up before Steve. But his lungs are taking in more air now and when he rises, his body feels lighter.

"Might be time to get to your own bed, pal," James says from the doorway. Bucky waves acknowledgement.

He is tired. The metal arm drags on his left side, even though Bucky knows in his bones that it is perfectly balanced.

_The weapon cannot function if it is not calibrated—_

He manages a few more snatches of sleep. Sweating and shaking upon waking up aside.


	8. Powdered Sugar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I almost forgot to post today...whoops.

The notebooks help. Bucky had tried to keep them organized at first but nothing about his mind has been or is organized and that bleeds onto the pages in writing that alternates between languages and writing styles. Sometimes Bucky doesn't even realize what language he's writing in until later.  He slaps colored tabs onto what he thinks is important and lets the rest hover between them.

He keeps his notebooks locked away except for the current one, which is hidden in his desk. Steve knows about the notebooks—knows how desperately Bucky writes every memory that sticks in his brain, knows that if Bucky ever loses his memory again he has to find the rest of them and if Steve thinks the reason behind Bucky writing is unhealthy he doesn't say anything.

He's writing the latest entry—a memory of something gritty, dirt under his nails—when Wilson knocks.

"Hey, Barnes. Can I come in?"

"One second."

Bucky finishes writing and closes the notebook.

"Okay."

"I'm coming in."

Wilson opens the door and steps inside. Bucky watches him from the desk, still save for his eyes. James is not around; ever since the robot attack, there have been times when he disappears. The room feels empty without him.

"Hey, man," Wilson says. "You doing okay?"

Bucky does a quick mental and physical assessment. Everything is normal, save for a slight lack of sleep and the need for nutrition. He nods.

"That's good, that's good." Wilson looks around. Bucky can see no judgment in his gaze. "Say, I'm leaving tonight for D.C., so I'm offering to make breakfast. Do you want some?"

Bucky blinks. "You're leaving?"

Wilson shifts. "Yeah. Gotta get back to my home, make sure everything's still running. I think I left shrimp in my refrigerator. And I gotta get back to my job."

The veterans. The ones like Bucky.

Bucky can't stand in the way of that, even though he finds the idea of Wilson leaving…disquieting. He is an easy presence in any room, one that Bucky has grown to rely on when his thoughts begin to run together. He will miss Wilson's ability to defuse a situation.

He doesn't say any of that. He just says, "Oh." And then, when his brain finally connects to his mouth, "I am hungry."

Wilson smiles. "Great. Hope you like skillets."

The kitchen is quiet except for the sounds of frying bacon and Wilson humming to himself as he cooks. It's—peaceful. Bucky picks up the newspaper but doesn't read it. Curiosity pokes at him.

"Where's Steve?"

"He's talking with Tony down in the labs," Wilson says.

Bucky knows why Steve didn't say anything to Bucky; Bucky can't go down there. He knows it would end badly. He still feels slighted by Steve's absence in a way he can't describe.

"He'll be back in a little bit," Wilson continues. He is quiet for a little while, and Bucky turns to see him cracking eggs into a pan. "They'll be ready in a few minutes. Guess you're hungry, huh?"

Bucky nods.

Wilson is true to his word and soon Bucky has a skillet in front of him. It looks and smells delicious, and Bucky's stomach rumbles. He is hungrier than he had thought, so he eats quickly. Only after he's almost done does Wilson slide into place across from him with a skillet of his own.

Wilson takes a few bites, obviously savoring the meal. Then he swallows and his posture changes enough that alarms ring in Bucky's head.

"Steve told me about the Peggy situation," Wilson says, his tone casual and utterly calm.

Bucky sets down the fork in his right hand. It is now bent at an uncomfortable angle. The terrible desire to know Steve's reaction has the plates in the metal arm shifting. It takes focus to still them, and that distracts Bucky from the dread in his mind.

"What did he say." It's not a question, not really. Bucky already knows what Steve had said in the twisted parts of his brain; words laced with disappointment and regret because of what Bucky had done.

Sam takes a bite of his skillet just to draw out the agony and then sighs. "I think I can guess where your head is going, Barnes. And I feel obligated to say straight out that you're wrong."

Sure.

"Steve is stubborn, and when he sets his mind to something—whether that's punching an alien in the face or saving his friend—it's going to get done. He's not going to stop halfway."

A flash—

_"You know I can't turn away from this fight, Buck."_

_Frustration and fear and anger wrapped up into a bundle so tight he can't even say anything and god dammit Steve I didn't want you here—_

Bucky blinks and shakes his head. "Sounds like him."

He can't tell whether his voice comes out bitter.

He should really have more control over his tells.

"You tried to keep him out and he found his own way in," James says. Bucky glances up, sees the soldier leaning against the kitchen counter, his eyes pinched at the corners and his frown heavy. Bucky tries to ignore the knot of tension in his stomach loosening at the sound of James's voice. "There were arguments, in the beginning. And then you kind of…resigned yourself to it. Figured that if he wasn't going to leave the war, you weren't either." James takes a deep breath. "Someone had to watch his back, make sure that Steve Rogers didn't get swallowed up by Captain America."

"Barnes?" Sam says. Bucky refocuses on him, wipes away whatever emotion is showing on his face.

"I tried to kill Carter," Bucky says. The words are ashes on his tongue. "Three times."

Sam purses his lips for a moment. "You didn't. Three times."

Oh that was a great point until Bucky recalls how goddamned frustrated he had been, how he had been punished by his handlers and had _accepted_ that punishment because it was his mission and he was supposed to carry it out, he was always supposed to complete the mission the mission was everything and if he didn't carry out the mission then _why the hell did he even exist_. That was what the Winter Soldier did: he completed missions. He did everything in the most efficient way possible, boxing away the pieces that didn't make sense until the mission was over or the electricity could carry them away and he could be made right again—

Bucky Barnes was nothing in his head and he had failed that mission and he had felt anger towards that woman had felt anger towards himself until the electricity had burned the feelings out and he was back to being the goddamned perfect _weapon_.

"Barnes," Sam says again. "You weren't yourself. And I know—and Steve knows—that if you had truly understood what you were doing, if you could have stopped yourself, you would have. That's something _you_ need to know."

He does know that, in some abstract kind of way. But that knowledge doesn't erase the memories the nightmares or the guilt. Nothing can. Nothing will.

(He's still the Winter Soldier he's just evolving now, just adapting and figuring out that the Soldier came second and there is a broken man buried beneath him.)

"Sam's still talking," James says.

"—atter what happens, Barnes, we're going to be here for you. Steve is not going to abandon you. What happened to you for all those years—it won't happen again."

The cynical part of Bucky wants to laugh. It wasn't supposed to happen in the first place; he was supposed to die in that ravine, but he hadn't. He was supposed to die so many times before that, but he hadn't.

(He was supposed to die to make the Soldier, but he hadn't.)

But Wilson is trying. So is Steve. And Stark, in his own way. And everyone else in this tower. They're all trying to help, despite what Bucky has done and the trouble he has caused.

And the cynicism in him can't find fault with all of them. Not this early, and not with warm food in his stomach and sunshine pouring in from the windows.

"I know," Bucky says. And he tries to believe it.

 

*

 

Wilson's absence becomes apparent almost immediately, but Steve compensates by pulling Bucky down to the common floor more often. He never does it when Bucky is having a bad day or is uncomfortable, but he doesn't let Bucky isolate himself either.

It's nice. Bucky thinks so, at least when his mind stops buzzing with static. James helps, calming Bucky down sometimes. Like a second voice in Bucky's head using logic to puzzle out what is setting Bucky off and how he can reduce the stress. It doesn't always work, but it helps.

He reads most of the time. Watches when reading isn't stimulating enough. And Steve must have some kind of sixth sense, because whenever Bucky starts to drift he is there, or he has sent someone else there, and it's frankly ridiculous when, on the fourth day after the Peggy meltdown, Barton walks over with hot cocoa so filled with whipped cream that it leans like the Tower of Pisa. Bucky just stares at him.

"Please take it," Barton says, "before my arm falls off. I overloaded the cream and I will now admit it was a mistake."

Bucky sets down his book and reaches out with the metal hand, catching the falling cream on his right hand and favoring Barton with a raised eyebrow.

Barton sighs. "Okay, yeah, this is a lot, even for me. But Nat isn't here to share and I really didn't feel like leaving the rest of the can of cream when there was barely enough for another cup. So, here we are."

Bucky eyes the cream still tottering over the edge of the mug.

"He's lying," James says. "But we're not gonna refuse this, are we?"

Bucky can smell the chocolate and cinnamon mixed into the drink. The aroma is intoxicating.

No, he is not going to refuse this.

"Thank you," he says. Clint smiles.

"No, thank you. I'd feel guilty having two all by myself."

Barton walks away, though Bucky feels that the way he moves is closer to sauntering when he is in a good mood.

(He used to walk like that. He's pretty sure. Before that excess motion was stripped away and Bucky was left with silent steps and a ghost haunting his every move.)

Some cream drips onto his hand and Bucky licks it off, raising an eyebrow at the taste.

"He hid powdered sugar in there," James mutters. "Clever bastard."

Clever indeed. Bucky focuses on getting the cream before it works its way between the metal plates of the metal hand. It's challenging, but he manages. The hot chocolate itself is worth the effort of getting through the cream, and Bucky has finished it before he realizes he is halfway done.

And then Barton is there, easy grin on his face. "You done?"

Bucky nods. Holds out the mug, and he's being efficient and only stops and realizes that when he sees Barton staring at him with something strange in his expression because there is a difference between moving with purpose and moving with efficiency and one always disturbs someone's sixth sense and Bucky hates that he has to focus on it to make himself stop. He injects humanity he copied from watching other people into his muscles and finishes the motion. Barton takes the mug as though he hadn't hesitated at all.

"You want seconds?"

"You said you were out of cream."

"On this floor. I'm sure Steve won't mind if I take some."

"Pretty sure Steve doesn't have any," James says. "Stark probably does."

Bucky repeats James's words.

"You're probably right. Say, JARVIS, does Tony have any whipped cream?"

"He does, but his refrigerator and pantry are armed with tamper-proof locks and I cannot open them without his permission."

Barton merely blinks. "Ah. Is there anywhere in this tower with cream? It's urgent."

"One moment."

Barton whistles a tune Bucky doesn't recognize, somehow making the pause while JARVIS scans less awkward.

"I have detected a can of the cream you desire on the floor you share with Agent Romanoff."

The way Barton freezes is almost comical. "She _hid_ one from me?"

"It would appear that way," JARVIS says.

"I will be right back," Barton says. Bucky watches as he drops the mugs off in the kitchen, his mock-angry steps carrying all the way to the elevator until the doors ding shut.

"That guy," James says, and that's all he says. That's all he has to say.

For some reason, Barton's behavior is—not familiar, but. It strikes a chord within Bucky, some sensation or memory or _something_ that eases muscles and loosens thoughts. His banter and tone are similar to Stark's yet grounded in a different world. One that Bucky suspects he knows more about than most.

_Six other guys and Steve sitting around the fire, late-night firelight reflecting in their eyes and off their teeth when they flash smiles, needling each other and cracking jokes as though they aren't in the middle of a global war._

Time slips by without Bucky noticing and he gains the presence of mind to reach for his book mere seconds before the elevator doors slide open and Barton emerges with three unopened cans of whipped cream. Bucky had been half-expecting Steve to come through; he had gone to visit Carter that morning, and it had taken more effort than Bucky cared to admit to get him to go alone. Steve is supposed to be back within the hour.

(Seeing Carter would be too much too fast and he couldn't _handle_ that, couldn't go with Steve even though his refusal made pain flash in Steve's eyes.)

"I'm not a great judge," James mutters, watching as Barton walks with determined strides to the kitchen, "but that seems like too much cream."

Bucky is more focused on the strange substance coating half of Barton's body. It isn't dust; more like chalk.  He also has curious pink splotches on one arm and a string-like substance on his boots.

"Before you ask," Barton calls from the kitchen, "Nat set up traps. She probably had cameras put up." His voice drops lower, but Bucky's enhanced hearing still picks up his muttering. "If you think I'm gonna let you win the prank war with this, Nat, you've got another thing coming."

Bucky doesn't have a response for that.

Several minutes later, Barton offers Bucky his mug back, now refilled and steaming. Bucky takes it and Barton finds a seat nearby. When Barton drinks, he gains a white mustache across his upper lip—and, when he does it intentionally, a strong beard of cream on his face.

Bucky, seeing how strange Barton looks with his features smeared in whisked milk, is far more careful in how he handles his drink.

"Steve thinks we should talk," Barton says without preamble once they have finished their second round of hot chocolate and Barton has somehow cleared his face of cream without a napkin.

"Of course he does," James says. "He always wants us to talk."

"Why," Bucky says, and it's not quite a question. Barton shrugs anyway.

"I went through a brainwashing stint," he says. He says it offhandedly, casting the words aside as though the ease with which he speaks them can hide the pain of a wound still healing.

Even James says nothing. Bucky tilts his head as he thinks, his mind running through what could have happened to Barton.

He is not enhanced; no serum running through his veins. It's therefore unlikely that Barton went through conditioning like Bucky did.

"Torture," James corrects. "Brainwashing. Awful, twisted, fucking _sick_ mind games."

Therefore, unlikely that Barton worked with either HYDRA or the Soviets. Bucky tilts his head, finally coming up short of any real answers, which bothers him. So he meets Barton's eyes.

"Who?"

"A deranged god with a lowercase g," Barton says. "Believe it or not."

If the chatter Bucky has overheard in the couple of weeks since he emerged from Steve's floor, a god is not the strangest foe Steve and his friends have encountered.

And now an old briefing comes forward in Bucky's head: Loki Odinson, brother of Thor and wielder of unidentifiable powers. Tried to bring an alien army through a portal in New York to conquer the world, but was stopped by the Avengers. There are more details, but Bucky's can't bring them into focus.

"He got in my head," Barton elaborates after a short pause. "Scepter. Glowy space rock. Touched me here—" he taps the center of his chest—"and I. Well." His smile is painfully tight. "I wasn't me anymore."

Something in Bucky's head prickles and James shifts uncomfortably.

"How long?" Bucky asks.

Barton huffs out a laugh that isn't a laugh. "Three days."

Bucky sees that he is telling the truth and waits for his mind to process the information and actually do something with it instead of leaving this blank slate. He finally manages to string three thoughts together and meets Barton's eyes.

"Do you remember?"

"Enough," he says with finality. "He pried my mind open and dumped something twisted inside that was never meant to be there. I've been—I've been working it out ever since."

Three days. Not long, relatively. But Bucky knows how much damage can be done in so little time. And they—Steve, whoever—probably thought that Barton would help. That someone with a similar experience could provide...comfort.

Bucky muses over Barton's words.

Something twisted dumped inside where it had no right to be. Awful, yes. But Bucky—Bucky knows that whatever the original Bucky Barnes was, the HYDRA scientists had just pulled out something in him that was already there and molded it as they desired. That anger, that cold rage and awful desire to be the best _(don't you dare touch me—don't you dare touch my best friend—firing shot after shot into the center of the target can't miss promoted I don't want—but I have to for Steve and I can't—no stopping have to be stronger have to be better can't be with him if I can't keep up—)_ had always been there and fuck what they did because it was beyond monstrous but it had a  _source_.

The Winter Soldier isn't something new or strange or alien jammed into Bucky's brain; the Winter Soldier _is_ Bucky, pulled past his limits, beyond his own mind, far past the point of humanity. And he's still in Bucky's head, a relapse waiting to happen ( _again_ ) because Bucky's too fucking broken to piece himself back together without walling off whatever's wrong so no one will notice, so Steve won't notice and think he's weak.

Can't even face the goddamned Winter Soldier in his own mind. Can't even face Steve. Can't do anything.

Barton takes a deep breath. "I know that what I went through can't compare to your experiences. They're not on the same scale. But...Nat and everyone else told me it wasn't my fault. Every single day they told me that, and at first I didn't believe them. I couldn't."

Bucky knows that not-quite-denial. He ignores the strange feeling of James's gaze on his back. Different scales, different sources, but Barton's experiences are the closest Bucky has got to his own.

"But they said it anyway even though I didn't believe them and guilt kept me up at night. And after a long-ass period of time I spent feeling like shit and acting like shit, I got help."

Barton pauses. Bucky can't figure out what his expression means.

"Did it work?" Bucky finally asks when he can't take the silence anymore.

"Yeah. But—" and Barton's mouth twists again—"that doesn't mean everything went away. I still feel guilty and some things—a lot of things. Just. But my head got better."

Bucky considers his words. "You're here to tell me that it gets better."

"Yeah. Pretty much."

James snorts in the background. Bucky ignores him.

"I kicked a man into the moving rotors of a quinjet," Bucky eventually says. "I stood there and watched as he was shredded. I heard his scream get cut short and I heard the sounds of the rotors tearing him apart and I didn't care. I know what I did was wrong now, but then it was just a necessary action for the mission. Everything was for the completion of the mission." It's as close as he can get to saying what he actually means because he knows that if he gets into the truth of things he'll never get out.

So Bucky leans forward, weighing words in his head and ignoring the discomfort of parts of him rebelling against every sound he makes. "I…appreciate, what you're trying to do. I—if I need help. More help," he amends, "then I will ask. But until then, I can work on it myself. It's...safer that way. For everyone."

Bucky leans back. He glances at James, who nods, his lips pressed into a thin line.

"I know it will get better," Bucky continues when he finds his voice. "Because I'm here, now. And I know that every word I speak is progress. But it is really fucking hard to think I'm doing better sometimes."

"When your mind slips," Barton says. Bucky nods, seeing the pained understanding reflected in Barton's eyes. "I get it. But there's always something that brings you back. Say, you want a third cup? I left most of the ingredients out."

It's a clear way out of the heavier side of their conversation and Bucky gladly takes it.


	9. Long Talks

Steve doesn't bring up Carter. Bucky notes how he tiptoes around the subject of her, and James just shakes his head every time it happens. Steve is avoiding the issue because he thinks that's what Bucky wants, or he thinks that not talking about it will help Bucky deal with the problem on his own.

Maybe. But Bucky can't take Steve badly deflecting conversation even one more time. It's painful.

"Did you hear about the new coffee shop that opened downstairs?" Steve says, pretending not to hear when Bucky mentions Carter purely to see what Steve will do.

"Pal," James says, rolling his eyes. "I swear he was better at deflection when he was younger."

Possible, because Bucky remembers not pushing the issue when Steve started coughing because it is really hard to argue with someone who is so small and can't even get a word out with his lungs rattling in his chest—

"Steve," Bucky says, "why are you avoiding talking about Carter?"

And it relieves Bucky somewhat—in a stupid, pathetic, needy way—that Steve doesn't try to pretend he hasn't been doing just that for the past few days.

"Talking about her upset you. I thought it would help if we didn't do that for a while."

Logical reasoning. But Bucky still feels rubbed the wrong way for a reason he can't pin down. Not even James has an explanation.

He tries to piece his thoughts together to form words but he comes up short; he can't find a way to say _frustrated not broken thanks don't not your please I don't—_

"You are aware that he did this because he thought it would help you," James says, and Bucky focuses on him.

"I know you thought it would help," Bucky says.

"And you know that you didn't like it."

"But it…it feels—uncomfortable."

_"Status report, Soldier."_

_"Emotional and physical levels within functional parameters."_

_"Good."_

He hates that word. _Uncomfortable_. It tastes like grit and ash and swallowed screams on his tongue. But _bad_ is worse and inaccurate besides, while _wrong_ is worse still. _Suppressive_ is closer but the feeling is not any of those. It cannot be pinned by a single word because it is the prickle of electricity on skin before lightning strikes; it is the eye of the storm and the tides before a tsunami. It is false comfort.

Bucky can choose what he wants to talk about and when. Before, the memories overwhelmed him. But they won't again, so they don't have to do this forced dance around each other anymore.

"We can work on that," James says. "We will."

He will use his head when his body won't listen. So he looks Steve in the eyes and says, "I can do this, Steve. Trust me."

And the _trust me_ doesn't mean what it sounds like—it's more of _trust me to tell you_ and _trust me to show it_ and _trust me to know myself_ and a hundred other variations but Steve acknowledges all of them with a short nod.

"Okay, Buck. I trust you."

James's face gains too much expression too quickly and Bucky feels the flood in his mind but he sidesteps it, pushing that aside for later when he can write it down and examine it and figure out how to deal with it. For now he focuses on Steve, because he's got that I'm-trying-not-to-think-but-I-can't-stop expression and it twists Bucky's insides, so he reaches out and grips Steve's shoulder.

He doesn't say anything, but judging from the tears in Steve's eyes and the way he shakes beneath Bucky's hand, he doesn't have to.

James swallows. "Steve's on the edge," he says in a voice still strained from emotion.

Bucky is mentally tired and the contact with Steve drains him more, even though he knows he should help Steve work things through.

But Wilson is gone and Bucky is a poor substitute, because when he tries to say something the words scatter like leaves in the wind and he lowers his hand. He is left with static and the knowledge that he can't do what he knows he should be doing and that sends waves of fear and panic and _can't-complete-wrong-mission-failure-punishment_ through his body and Bucky blinks.

When he returns to his body he realizes he is in his room—the room Steve calls his—and the lamp is broken and the alarm clock is smashed and the pillows are torn up and Bucky is sitting against the wall in the corner with his knees drawn up to his chest and the metal hand gripping his other forearm hard enough to bruise.

James is sitting on the bed with his head in his hands and when he makes eye contact with Bucky he just looks away.

"Fuck," Bucky says. He doesn't know how long he has been sitting there. He can't remember how he got there, and the moments before his mind blanks out entirely are patchy. He glances at James again. "What happened?"

James shrugs.

Great. What if he hurt Steve?

But there isn't any blood on his body that he can find.

Time skips again and when Bucky blinks he's seeing Steve standing in the doorway.

He's asking to come in. If he can turn on the light.

Bucky says yes to the first, no to the second.

Steve isn't visibly injured. His eyes are tired.

"Something happened, Buck," Steve says, and his voice is soft in a way that brushes at something buried in Bucky's head. It's not unpleasant but Bucky shivers anyway. "You don't need to tell me what it was. But is there something I can do to help?"

Yes. No. I don't know.

"Keep him talking," James offers, and Bucky realizes that Steve's voice is soothing. Better than the silence in Bucky's head and the stifling room.

"Talk," Bucky whispers. For a moment, the silence is all there is, but then Steve clears his throat.

He talks.

He talks about nothing; about long afternoons in Brooklyn watching other kids play in the street, about breaking his favorite drawing pencil, about the unpredictability of fall weather, about radio shows and TV dramas and what he had for breakfast that day.

Bucky doesn't care about the words. He listens to the sound of Steve's voice, the way his syllables roll into one another and blend to form a slight—but recognizable—Brooklyn accent. He listens to its cadence, to the alternating patterns of emphasis and de-emphasis.

And slowly, he starts to feel _there_ again. Steve's voice resonates in his ears and he can feel the wall pressing up against his back, the floor against his feet. His clothes rub against his skin and the pain from where he had squeezed his arm is more real than it had been originally.

When he can feel the breath in his lungs and his heart beating in his chest, Bucky tips his head back and lets it rest against the wall. Steve lets his sentence die midway through, sensing the change in Bucky's behavior.

Bucky swallows. "Why are you here, Steve?"

Steve responds carefully. Through slitted eyes, Bucky watches him pick and choose his words. He didn't used to be this careful. "Because you matter to me. You're my friend."

Bucky flicks his eyes over to James. There is a chasm between Bucky and what _he_ used to be and he can't cross it. "Your friend died," he says without thinking.

He sees Steve flinch and regrets the words immediately, but he can't take them back.

Several seconds pass and Steve spends each of them pulling his thoughts together. Bucky watches the stupid wrinkle in his forehead deepen in tandem with his mood **.**

"I know you're not the same Bucky that fell off the train," Steve says, speaking with slow deliberation. He waits until Bucky looks him in the eyes to continue. "You're still Bucky. You're still my best friend, no matter what. And I won't lie to you—I can't lie to you—it hurts, sometimes. But—" Steve's eyes are fierce—"I want you here as much as I've wanted anything in my life. I want you here, and as close to happy as you can get. And it's selfish, I know, but I want it anyway."

"I can't—" Bucky starts, and words fail him.

Steve's expression softens. "Oh, Buck, no—I don't—I have never expected anything from you. I don't expect you to be the man from before. This is _your_ life. Your choices to make, should you choose to make them." Steve's eyes are watering. "God, Bucky, I am not going to get angry at you, or resent you, or think you are anything less than my best friend for needing time and space and effort. Never."

Bucky tries to ignore the way Steve's voice had caught on the word _before_ and focus on the rest of the message. It makes him quiver on the inside, a bow string pulled taut.

"As long as you're willing to try, I'll be here," Steve says. "And even if you're not, I'll be by your side. I swear to you, Bucky. I will not abandon you again."

Again. He said _again_.

James laughs like broken glass. "Did he—what the hell, Steve?"

Bucky licks his lips and juggles the syllables in his head. "You didn't abandon me the first time."

There are memories there. From the beginning, before James Buchanan had been erased, when he had clawed and bit and screamed and clung to Steve's name until they showed him the papers and the cracks spread through his body so quickly they broke the crumbling walls down and he was gone.

Bucky shudders, rejecting those memories with all he has. He can't, not right now. Maybe never, but definitely not now.

"Can I come closer?" Steve asks, and Bucky focuses on his voice. James is no help, just a presence that flickers in and out of Bucky's attention. So Bucky nods, giving into the pathetic part of him that craves Steve's touch and comfort, citing foggy memories of dark nights and hours spent with his back against Steve's, listening and feeling for any problems.

Steve scoots until he is on Bucky's right, squeezing between Bucky and the corner to avoid boxing Bucky in. The contact is minimal; just their shoulders brush. But that is still enough to send sparks shooting up Bucky's skin.

Part of his mind is begging for more. The rest is pleading for less. Bucky settles on not doing anything—though it doesn't feel like settling, not with the way his muscles vibrate, but Steve clears his throat and Bucky looks at him.

"Can I hold your hand?" Steve asks, and he has this embarrassed little smile on his face and Bucky is caught off-guard. He has nodded before he fully understands Steve's request, and by the time he thinks about reconsidering Steve is rubbing slow circles on the back of Bucky's right hand.

The parts of him that want more or less touching fall several decibels with the rhythmic motion and Bucky closes his eyes, trying to lose himself in the feeling of Steve's thumb rolling over bones and veins and skin.

Steve's speech is still sitting in Bucky's brain, a waterfall of _you're my friend_ and _I never expected anything from you_ and _it's your life_ and every single word is hard enough to swallow on its own because Bucky's brain wants to reject it like he wants to reject the softness of his bed at night and the deliciousness of Wilson's cooking and the humor of Barton's quips and the possibilities of books.

Bucky can't stop that rejection yet (he has to believe that he will someday, that it will at least get to the point that he can drown it out with something else but for now—) so he puts it in a box and tapes up the holes and plugs his ears until it's just one more unpleasant hum in his head.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Steve asks, still rubbing Bucky's hand.

"What can it hurt," James mutters. "Not like keeping quiet's gonna change anything."

It takes Bucky a minute to track where this whole mess had even started. And it's stupid, because it started when Steve was trying to be careful and that caution is what set Bucky off.

Stupid.

"Not stupid," James says.

"I can't—" Bucky shakes his head, lets Steve's thumb get through two rotations before he tries again. "I'm not gonna break down over everything." The words are wrong but Bucky hopes Steve gets the message anyway. "I just. I just need a little time. To get my head. Together."

"Yeah, of co—"

Bucky interrupts, the metal hand whirring as he clenches it into a fist. "But I can't shut myself away. Again. It's not—it's not helping. And I. If I can do things and get used to them—I can get better." He licks his lips, tries to make his words as true as he can. "I want to get better." Repeat. "I _want_ to get better. To _be_ better. And I—I want you to be there. With me. Like you said."

Steve doesn't—can't—speak for several minutes, his thumb circles jerky for the first couple as he sniffles and tries ineffectually to rub his face on his arm.

"That's—that's real good, Buck," Steve finally says, his voice cracking.

Bucky leans on him a little more and focuses on his breathing.

"Steve?"

"Yeah?"

"Can you tell me about Carter?"

"Peg? Yeah, of course. Do you have anything in mind?"

No.

"I can start from the beginning," Steve offers, and Bucky nods.

James shifts on the bed to face Steve, his expression intent. When Steve talks, he listens, almost as though he's checking everything Steve is saying against what he knows.

And maybe Bucky is doing that too, with the red dress and sharp smile. But that's in the background.

Bucky listens and relaxes as far as his mind will let him. It's not great; his jaw won't unclench quickly and his instinct is not to lean harder into Steve but Bucky pushes himself, knowing that if he needs to he can move away.

He can try.

He will try.


	10. Restlessness and Other Fun Feelings

In the days following his talk with Steve, a strange feeling grows in the pit of Bucky's stomach. He can't pin it down; even James is useless at identifying it, and Bucky doesn't want to burden Steve with anything else so he keeps it quiet and waits for it to either go away or provide a reason for existing.

It doesn't.

 

*

 

"Hey, Buck."

Bucky glances up from his bowl of cereal, raising an eyebrow at Steve's pleased expression. "Why are you so happy?"

Steve grins like the world exists just for him today. "Woke up on the right side of the bed, I guess. We're doing group training today. Wanna join in?"

Bucky chews and swallows, turning the offer over in his head.

"Won't hurt," James says. "'Sides, you haven't done combat training since you warmed up with Steve that one time. Might be good to do some stuff other than individual workouts and shooting practice."

Valid points. Bucky meets Steve's eyes again. "I need a minute to change."

"Meet you in the training room?"

"Yeah."

When Bucky gets to the training room a few minutes later—wearing his usual combat gear, no doubt placed in his quarters after the robot attack—the rest of the Avengers are already there. Steve, Stark, and Romanoff are discussing something in the middle of the room while Banner, Barton, and Thor chat amicably to one side. They are all dressed to fight; Banner is wearing a very stretchy-looking pair of pants, the only outlier in the room otherwise bristling with weapons and body armor.

"Hey, it's the Manchurian Candidate!"

Bucky looks at Stark with a flat stare.

"What, nothing? Cap, you two have really got to work on your movie experience."

"I'll keep that in mind," Steve says dryly. "Buck, come over here?"

Bucky walks over, returning Barton's nod of acknowledgement along the way. Ever since the hot chocolate conversation, they have kept up a steady kind of friendship that relies more on actions than words. It mostly involves just sitting in the same room, though Bucky has had shooting competitions against Barton three times now.

"So, Terminator," Stark says, rubbing his metal-covered hands together, "we have a bit of a routine we're used to, so the plan is for you to observe for however long you need and then for you to jump in where necessary. The robots are going to be shooting actual energy bursts today - low power, of course, but enough to hurt - and since you don't have a shield like Cap I'd suggest avoiding them. Capisce?"

Bucky nods.

"You grabbed your weapons from the lockers outside here, right?" Romanoff asks.

"Why does it matter?" Bucky asks. Guns are guns. But Stark makes a funny face and Steve coughs.

"The ones in here are modified to shoot the energy bolts," Stark says when he gets his expression under control. "They'll disable the robots only if they hit the right spot or if you hit the robot enough times. Accuracy training."

And avoiding friendly fire, which no one mentions. Bucky wants to feel annoyed; he knows how to shoot a gun and he's fucking good at it. He doesn't need accuracy training, nor does anyone in this room with the possible exception of Banner.

"It's fine," James says. So Bucky lets it go.

"They're from the lockers," he says. Romanoff nods.

"Good."

Ridiculous.

The Avengers take positions around the room as the simulation begins. Barton finds a platform on the far wall that is nearly invisible from the floor while Stark shoots into the air. Though Wilson isn't here, Bucky suspects he would do the same.

"Initiating Avengers training module level three. Introducing enemies," JARVIS says. Panels in the floor lower and then rise again with androids standing on them. The machines are nicer than the ones Steve trained against the last time, and when Romanoff decapitates one with an energy weapon Bucky can see it spark as the lights in its eyes flicker and die. Stark takes out another two while Thor and Steve work together to take out an entire quarter of the available force. Robot parts go flying and Bucky tilts his head just enough to avoid getting hit by a stray leg. He watches how the Avengers function, cataloguing their patterns.

Steve and Thor are the heavy hitters, with Romanoff working to cover their backs and Barton keeping an eye on everything and calling out weaknesses or problems over the comms. Stark is a veritable tank, supporting anyone that needs it or, in the absence of that, challenging large groups on his own and destroying them with his technology.

And then the Hulk appears.

Bucky watches, part of his brain reminding him that the Hulk does not just _appear_. He comes from Banner, who must have been waiting for Barton to give the word.

If Steve and Thor are tanks, then the Hulk is a nuclear warhead. He smashes through anything and everything in his way, shrugging off laser fire even though Bucky can see the burns marking his green skin. The Avengers adjust immediately; the Hulk takes point, breaking robots as they come while Steve and Thor cover his flanks. Romanoff keeps up her previous task but focuses more on any blind spots. Stark targets machines the three biggest fighters can't reach, while Barton calmly plants arrows in the eyes of any machine that slips through the cracks.

It's impressive teamwork. All three of the main roles the Winter Soldier can play - sniper, support, tank - are already filled. But Bucky knows tactical flexibility, so he watches for another minute just to be sure of his previous observations.

(Some of this is familiar. He suspects that HYDRA had him study the Avengers before. Why, he can guess.)

"Beginning level four," JARVIS says as the last of the blue robots fall to pieces. Once more, robots rise from the floor. Only this time, they have red slashes across their metal armor - armor that is bulkier than it was before.

Bucky has more time to observe, so he does. These new robots are noticeably tougher than their predecessors. Only Hulk and Thor appear to be able to permanently down them with one strike, though if Steve strikes them in the right spot with his shield then he can too.

After sixteen more seconds of combat, Bucky checks his sniper rifle and decides that he will be the secondary sniper. From this angle, he can attack more enemies that Barton can't easily shoot. He and Barton may end up hitting the same targets, but after their many shooting competitions Bucky is confident that those instances will be few and far between.

He takes down four robots with three shots and hears them commenting over the comms, but he is focused and so only responds when it's necessary. Stark is still obnoxious, but he is focused on the fight.

Bucky shoots a robot about to fire at Steve. It goes down with a smoking hole right where its heart would be. When it twitches again on the floor, Bucky puts a bullet through its head.

"Initiating level five," JARVIS says.

Now the robots have yellow armor. Some of them carry weapons other than rifles. One has a rocket launcher that releases a concussive blast on whatever it hits, strong enough to make even the Hulk pause. Bucky knows a blow like that would at the very least bruise ribs on a normal person.

The Hulk bats that robot into the ceiling.

Bucky and Barton have the entire room covered between them, but with the addition of new kinds of enemies Bucky has to shift positions. He warns the group and prepares to move, but freezes when he hears Steve shout in pain. Bucky spins around so fast some of his hair comes loose from its bun. He's shot the offending robot three times—head, heart, head again—before he processes that he has the rifle raised. Steve is wincing, favoring his right leg and saying something about watching his left.

_Dammit._

Bucky grits his teeth. He finds a new location and puts holes in the robots. He stops paying attention to Barton and the rest. He just wants those metal assholes to fall.

One of his shots is apparently too close to one of his allies. They reprimand him over the comms. Bucky ignores them; the redhead is fine.

Level six is even worse. Some of the robots have experimental invisibility tech. It isn't enough to do more than blur them and make Bucky's eyes hurt to look at them, but it's annoying. One tries to sneak up on Bucky and, since Bucky runs out of charge for the gun shooting two others before it reaches him, he uses the sniper rifle as a bat to separate the robot's head from its neck. He repeats that procedure with the next machine to charge him and then discards the rifle in favor of a one-handed submachine gun.

He nearly slips up and three circle him in the split second it takes for Bucky to recover. One goes down with an arrow in it, the next under a hail of gunfire, and then Bucky punches through the third's armor with his metal arm and crushes what he guesses is its power supply.

It's exhilarating. A cold energy burns in Bucky's veins and he doesn't know if he's smiling or not but he feels like he should be.

Another robot loses its heart to Bucky's metal arm and Bucky reloads the submachine gun just in time to jam its muzzle in another robot's mouth and spray energy into its inner circuitry. It goes down twitching, and Bucky smashes its face in with his boot just to be sure.

There is a cluster of robots rising from the floor on Steve's left and Bucky dives into it before the green one can, whirling between their jerky motions and dismantling them with all the efficiency of a machine—a _better_ machine. The last robot crumples and Bucky tosses its arm aside, already searching for his next target. The submachine gun had run out of ammunition some time ago and Bucky had replaced it with an energy-bladed knife which, while less efficient at longer ranges, does wonders when he gets his opponents within reach.

Too bad it isn't balanced for throwing.

One of the robots tries to sneak up on him again and Bucky wonders if they are supposed to adapt because he can hear this one coming and its frankly disappointing. He he spins, the knife already heading for its throat—

"Not a robot!" James cries right as Bucky registers that it's _Steve_ and he aborts the attack but it's way too close. His right arm is shaking; the blade is mere centimeters from Steve's neck.

Bucky drops the weapon in shock and disgust (at himself?) and it clatters to the floor.

Steve tries to act as though nothing has happened. Bucky doesn't let him, instead turning and taking several steps away to get some space. Once he is sure Steve isn't about to crowd him and set off the wrong instincts, Bucky breathes.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

They must have stopped the training module once they saw him moving into more aggressive combat. They were probably worried that he would...what, succumb to the Winter Soldier under the pressure of dangerous combat? Yeah, like his head is that simple.

And he can still fight. He isn't compromised so much that he can't cover Steve's left flank.

One.

Two.

Three.

Bucky turns back around to look Steve in the eye. "Are you okay?"

"Me?" Steve says with incredulity dripping from the word. Bucky narrows his eyes. He can see the angry red line on Steve's throat, a burn from the proximity of the energy blade. And Steve is still putting more weight on his right leg than his left. "Buck, are _you_ okay?"

"I'm a goddamned soldier, Steve," Bucky says, fighting to keep the frustration out of his tone. "I can handle myself."

"That's not—I _know_ that, you idiot. That isn't going to stop me from being concerned."

"I don't need—" Bucky stops. There isn't any reason for him to be mad at Steve. Steve has done nothing wrong. Bucky lost focus during the training exercise; _that_ is the problem here. But he is fine now, and no one was seriously wounded. And Steve is going to pretend as though that burn doesn't exist until it heals. So Bucky runs a hand over his face, forcing his body to let go of the last of its tension. The metal plates in his arm click out of their combat settings. "I'm fine, Steve."

Steve doesn't look convinced (and frankly, neither do any of the other Avengers) but he nods anyway. "Alright. Just tell me if there's a problem, okay?"

If Bucky did that he'd never close his mouth. So he lies and nods.

The room is suddenly stifling.

"I'm gonna go to the gym," Bucky says. He leaves, and no one tries to stop him.

 

*

 

A week passes. Two. And even when Bucky finds a rhythm to his schedule and actually holds conversations with the other Avengers, the uncomfortable feeling persists, though it fades a little in the wake of the training exercise.

After three weeks it starts growing again, faster than before. Bucky paces the length of Steve's apartment and stares out the window and wonders why the hell he can't be happy with this. It's a nice day with the sun shining and the weather just cool enough that the air isn't stifling—at least according to Steve—yet Bucky's mind won't relax.

He tries to sit and read, but the words don't stay in his head. He tries to go to his journal, but the pages don't mean anything right now. He tries to exercise, but that only makes the feeling worse now. (After three more group sessions with the Avengers and two awful conversations with Steve, Bucky had gotten a handle on the ice in his veins. He had made the executive decision not to tell Steve that the reason Bucky slipped into that state of mind in the first place was because Steve got hurt.)

What Steve doesn't know won't hurt him.

(Bucky won't let it.)

Steve picks up on Bucky's restlessness on day twenty-three when Bucky can't hide it from him anymore.

"What's eating you, Buck?"

Bucky takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. "I don't know."

Steve sits on the couch behind him while Bucky stays standing, his gaze wandering around the living room.

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

"I don't know."

Steve is quiet for a minute. Bucky glances over at him, sees that he's deep in thought. When Steve speaks, what he says isn't anything Bucky is expecting. "Do you want to leave the Tower?"

"No." _Yes._

Bucky pauses. Is that really the feeling making his fingers twitch? Making these walls feel too small and the air too thick? It doesn't seem _wrong,_ but.

He doesn't want to leave Steve. And Steve is in the Tower. But the idea of leaving—an idea that hadn't crossed Bucky's mind since the first month—is now sticking again. And it's making parts of Bucky's head go to static because yes he wants to leave to go to move so fucking badly because—

Because.

And he doesn't _want_ to leave at the same time because Steve and he's comfortable here but he was living on his own for a while and he wants to—

"You're never gonna be a kid from Brooklyn again," James says, and the world stops. "You know that, right? What would leaving here even get you? Distance from Steve? You know that's just gonna hurt him and you. You don't get a normal life anymore. They took that from you."

Bucky knows all of that and can't bring himself to get angry at James for saying it because it's true.

But.

He wants to get out of the Tower. Out of its sleek design and modern technology and inhabitants that are so far from the shadows in Bucky's memory. There is a city spread out around him and he can only look down on it through glass windows.

And the Tower is nice and Steve seems happy but Bucky—

Bucky isn't. He doesn't feel comfortable leaving but he doesn't feel comfortable staying and it's stupid, it's so unbelievably stupid and he hates that this feeling has been plaguing him for so long and he can't make it fucking _stop_ —

"Buck, hey. Hey."

Steve is gently touching the metal hand. The hand that is gripping his right wrist hard enough to make the bone creak.

"Can you let go?" Steve asks.

Bucky does, slowly. The plates in the metal arm click as they adjust. "I'm—"

He doesn't know what he's going to say. Sorry? Stupid? Pathetic?

"It's okay," Steve says. "We can talk about this later, if you want."

No. No, no. This had to happen now or he was going to do something phenomenally stupid to stop his body from buzzing.

"I want to go," Bucky says. "I—out. For a while. I don't know. I just—can't. Stay here. Right now." He has to quiet the humming in his brain. He has to.

Bucky meets Steve's eyes and his thoughts stall because Steve is staring at him with understanding in his gaze.

"Okay," Steve says.

And that's that.


	11. Move It or Lose It

That's really not that. Steve may understand Bucky's restlessness but he can't do everything and by the time Bucky is in an apartment every person save Banner and Thor has gotten involved in the process in some way or another.

It's stressful and awful and Bucky regrets it all for two days until he steps foot in the apartment and that fucking terrible feeling disappears.

Steve is with him, of course. Steve and several armfuls of cardboard boxes containing toiletries, sheets, and other essentials that Bucky hadn't even thought about until Potts brought them up, and they've dragged in some furniture but not much and Bucky knows he is going to have to do some adjusting if he wants this place to be more than just livable.

The apartment isn't big; it's a one-bedroom deal with a pullout couch in the living room accompanied by the small mattering of furniture brought in earlier. But it's enough, and Bucky declines Steve's offer to help decorate.

This is his space. He will decorate it.

James is curiously quiet, walking around the apartment with a dazed look on his face. Bucky doesn't want to ask what's wrong because there is a headache hiding behind certain corners of his mind and asking might trigger it.

Bucky quickly checks the apartment for anything unusual and finds nothing. He notes that the refrigerator and pantry are empty and that he doesn't have any dishes or utensils.

Awesome.

His bedroom is around fourteen feet by twelve, with a closet in the wall and a door that opens into the living room. A large window rests on the far wall with the shades drawn. Bucky pulls them aside to glance outside and sees that he has a decent view of a neighboring empty lot. The next building over appears to be empty, its windows boarded up and dark. Bucky can see the graffiti speckled along its sides and concludes that it's abandoned.

Steve is still bringing in boxes when Bucky returns to the living room. "Like what you see?" he asks.

Bucky makes a noise that may be an affirmative and helps Steve carry the last of the supplies in. One of the boxes smells really good and Bucky opens it to see food.

"Clint's suggestion," Steve explains. "He said you might not be up to going shopping for a few days after moving in."

Something blocks Bucky's throat and makes it hard to swallow, but he nods.

"We kept the move low profile, so your neighbors don't know who you are or who you know," Steve continues. "Call me if you need anything, okay? Anything at all. Even if you think it's stupid or pathetic." He smiles. "I like seeing you too, you know."

Bucky nods again, his throat still tight.

Steve looks around, as if reassuring himself that Bucky can live here. Then he seems to come to a decision and takes a step forward.

It's his body language, or maybe his expression. But something about Steve calls up a reflex in Bucky's head and he's closing the distance, wrapping his arms around Steve before he fully realizes what he is doing.

His heart is pounding hard enough to shake his ribs and he can't control his breathing and he's sweating—

Steve returns the hug for one brief second and then Bucky can step back, can put some distance between them and recover—

"See you later?" Steve says. His eyes are shiny and squinted at the corners. Bucky wants to ask him to stay, but at the same time he doesn't. Steve has been his home for the past few months. Even when Bucky hadn't known who he was, he'd had Steve.

But that kind of dependency is dangerous. He has to learn what his limits are, what he can do without Steve at his back.

He won't stop seeing Steve. He just needs to have a choice.

"See you later," Bucky says.

Steve leaves, and Bucky is alone.

 

*

 

The first thing he does is unpack the food and basic supplies. It's a soothing action, repetitive, and it gives him time to come to terms with the different sounds of the small apartment building and its surroundings.

He puts his room together next, adding sheets to the mattress that had been delivered and moving the desk so that it can be shoved in front of the door quickly if necessary.

By the time he has finished unpacking and moved the boxes to the tiny storage space by the bathroom, the sun has begun to set and Bucky's stomach is empty. He grabs a protein bar and munches on that while he cases the apartment one more time, just to make absolutely sure there is nothing that he missed the first time around.

Even when the search finds nothing, Bucky still can't settle down, but he hadn't expected to be able to.

Another protein bar and Bucky finds a spot on the old couch, flicking on the TV Stark had donated. Bucky isn't sure how Steve convinced Stark to help—or maybe the billionaire just wanted Bucky out of his Tower. Bucky doesn't find the thought all that unusual. Though he and Stark have been polite to each other (even helpful, on Stark's end), they have not resolved all of the tension between them.

Bucky settles on a random show about people at work, turning the volume just high enough that it creates comforting background noise even when he goes to the kitchen.

The food that he has is enough for three or four days, depending on how Bucky chooses to eat it. He settles on mac and cheese for tonight, adding a few other ingredients as he goes to supplement the pasta and dairy.

Watching Wilson cook for all those weeks has paid off.

Sure, the pasta comes out a little chewy and the meat pieces are slightly undercooked, but it's better than what Bucky had been eating when he was on his own the first time.

The first time. Bucky closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Was that a memory?

"Yes," James says.

"You're done wandering?" Bucky replies, taking his spoils of the culinary war to the table to eat while pocketing the memory to write down when he finishes.

"Yeah. Sorry about that, by the way. It was so much easier to avoid things when we in the nice 'n sleek Tower. This...this is more familiar."

"Good or bad way?" Bucky asks while sitting down at one of the two chairs at the table.

"Good."

The first forkful is good, thought Bucky knows most of the positive taste is because he's hungry. James settles in next to him, and though Bucky knows that James is not a physical presence, it takes a couple of seconds to mentally process and subsequently ignore the false sensations of his weight tipping the cushions.

Bucky makes it ten seconds before he can't stop the curiosity from pushing the words out of his mouth. "What are you?"

James shifts in his chair, drawing Bucky's gaze, though if Bucky focuses on his exact positioning too much his head pounds.

"Tough questions come after dinner," James says.

Fine.

Bucky finishes eating. He washes the dishes and sets them in the dishwasher. He sits back down. He looks at James.

"Talk."

James laughs, his features resolving themselves into the familiar face of the teenager. "Telling yourself to talk. That's a little sideways, pal."

"I've been living with you for weeks now," Bucky says. "That's sideways enough for anything." He works his jaw, puzzling out what he wants to say. "At first it was—weird. Disturbing. You were another ghost except you weren't just in my head. You didn't talk much. I could ignore you. And then I couldn't. So now that we're talking and I know you're more than something I dreamed up, I need to know what you are. Because you're not a simple hallucination."

James sits back in his chair. His features grow fuzzy, until Bucky is looking at the tired soldier.

"I'm James Buchanan Barnes," James finally says. His features twist into a wry smile. "32557038." Bucky flinches at the stream of numbers, blocking them out before they can drown everything else. James doesn't repeat them again. "I'm you. Parts of you. Memory, for one. Bits and pieces—I try to tell you them when they come. When they're more than just the flashes in your brain. Instincts from before the war. Talking to people. Interacting. And—I don't know, really. I don't know exactly what I am."

Bucky swallows. "Then why are you here? How are you here?"

James shrugs. "I have a purpose: to help you not crack apart. Don't know how I came to be; maybe we just realized we needed a push. So I guess I'm something we dreamed up. I just stuck around when you woke up."

"That answered nothing," Bucky says after a beat. James sighs.

"Yeah. Figured. But I don't know anything else."

"But you told me a while ago," Bucky says slowly, "that you were here because I wouldn't want everything at once. You're withholding memories from me, the big ones."

"Yeah, well. I'm holding back the tide and letting you splash around in the puddles."

"If you weren't?"

"I don't know. You'd crack. Go insane. Or maybe you'd be fine."

"Those aren't answers."

"As I said, I'm you, pal. My answers are your answers. We're just from different parts of our head, parts that aren't currently communicating very well."

Bucky closes his eyes for a few seconds to center himself. "So there's me, you, and…the third part."

"The third part," James says, "eclipses me in all the wrong ways. I'd recommend not thinking about it."

"I can't stop thinking about it!" Bucky snaps. "That's the fucking problem!"

James waits and Bucky realizes that he had been far louder than he intended to be. Bucky takes a few deep breaths, counting them out in his head.

"What the hell is wrong with me," he finally says.

"We're working on it," James replies.

Bitterness coats Bucky's tongue. "Sure."

"Do you want to call Steve?"

"I don't know."

"We gotta do something."

"I know."

Bucky stares at the wooden grain of the table for a long time. When he looks up, the sky outside is dark and he realizes that he only has one light on. Bucky goes to the living room and finds the book he had unpacked hours ago. The TV in the background is still going, though the show has switched to people in their homes instead of at work.

It's very strange.

The ridiculousness of the TV coupled with the book help Bucky to settle his nerves to the point at which getting into bed is more inviting than stifling.

He gets a text from Steve: _you comfortable?_

Bucky sends an affirmative and puts his phone on silent.

One last check of the apartment—with special attention to the locks on the windows and doors—and then Bucky heads for bed. He knows he won't get much sleep, but that's not the point.

It's his bed, in his room, in his apartment.

His. Not Stark's or Steve's.

He finds pajamas among the clothes Steve and Hill had apparently scraped together for him, though they're merely soft flannel pants and an oversized shirt. Still, they are better than his usual, so he changes into them before sliding under the covers.


	12. Inedible Oreo

Bucky stays inside the next day to grow even more familiar with the apartment and get the message into his brain that this is now a safe space. It doesn't matter that his brain stays hyperaware anyway; the words are there, and eventually they will stick. The same thing had happened in the place where Steve had found him, that cramped and old apartment in Bucharest that had been perfect for Bucky's head.

He passes the afternoon by arranging some of the furniture in a better way; he moves the couch out of an easy view from the window, and changes where the chairs are in the kitchen. At some point he sends Steve a text to let him know that everything is okay. He mostly does it because James points out that Steve will be worrying.

By the time night rolls around for the second time, the apartment feels…better. Bucky can't say exactly why, but it does.

He goes on patrol that night. No one else is awake at that hour save for a man on the second floor who sounds as though he is desperately trying to slurp peanut butter through a broken straw.

When Bucky actually smells peanut butter, he decides to move on.

The building is mostly empty, a rarity in New York, but not for any virtuous reasons. Many of the rooms leak, and according to Potts only one other room had been livable. She had sent "her people" (as Stark calls them) to discreetly fix up Bucky's place before he moved in.

Which was unnecessary, but kind.

There are four other occupied apartments in the building. One on the first floor belongs to a single college student who is gone most days and, from what Bucky can tell, when she is inside, she keeps to herself. Another is occupied by an older woman whose profession is unclear. The third belongs to a young married couple who are avid fans of kids' cartoons. A family of three—two fathers and a young girl—live in the last apartment.

There are no immediately obvious threats, and while the building is dilapidated, its creaky floors and stairwell will make it more difficult for intruders to sneak around. Bucky has already set up tripwires and other traps around his apartment that any potential intruder will not be able to avoid. Therefore, Bucky will find out if anyone enters while he is gone.

He gets a brief flash of the apartment he and Steve used to share. They had a key hidden just outside the door, shoddy windows that couldn't even keep out the rain. No security. But they had still been able to relax.

Bucky knows that he will never be able to drop his guard completely. After the HYDRA robots attacked him in the Tower, another attempt to take him back could come at any time.

On the third day he decides to supplement his food supply. He knows exactly what kind of face Steve will make if he finds out that Bucky has been living on nothing but protein bars and water—

_"Buck, I can't take your lunch."_

_"C'mon, Steve, I've got s'more back home. It'll be fine, just eat it."_

"Have we always done that?" Bucky asks when the memory fades and he can speak again without flashing back to Small Steve staring up at him with wide eyes and _Steve used to look up at him_ and Steve _used to be so small_ and that isn't even getting into the rush of emotion that comes with the memory that Bucky has to cram into a box in his head so that he can keep standing. He's already reaching for the notebook, which he almost always keeps close enough to grab easily.

James shrugs in response to Bucky's question, waiting for Bucky to finish transcribing the words before he speaks. Bucky has to pause in the middle of writing to switch to the metal hand because his right one is shaking.

"Pretty much."

Bucky stares at the words on the page, twirling the pen in the metal hand while his right slowly forms a fist on the table. He has been bothered by this for some time now, but this makes its oddness even clearer.

He can't avoid this question anymore.

What was the point? Steve had been asthmatic, sick, prone to fights, and generally unhealthy. What had been the point of being friends with him, of helping him, of doing anything like that if Steve was going to die before he was thirty?

Instead of voicing all of that Bucky just says, his voice cracking before he can stop it because those stupid emotions are spilling out of the box, " _Why_?"

James is unfazed.

"You know why."

No. Bucky knows his own head and there are blank spots and chasms and pitfalls and dead ends and roads that lead to nowhere wrapped around whatever thing he's supposed to be now and he _doesn't. Know_.

"I—I don't. I don't remember." Bucky shudders, grasping for information that isn't there, information that slides out of his reach or gone entirely. It's frustrating and Bucky can barely feel the counter beneath his fingers because his head is whirling and he isn't feeling so stable. "I don't fucking _remember_. Why can't I—why isn't it there? It should be there—right? I should—fuck, I should _know_. This is—everything I did—everything I've ever done—and it's there but it's not and I can't—remember anything why can't I—why—"

He can't finish, his head is pounding and he can't focus on anything except the metal hand and with a sickening lurch in his stomach he realizes that it's not _the_ metal hand, it's his, he can't get rid of it and he can't get his old one back, he doesn't even remember what it is like to have true sensation in that hand and it's just one more difference that Steve sees just by looking at him and one more separation between him and the person he was and it's absolutely fucking terrible and he can't he just can't pull all the pieces together his seams are tearing with each new memory and he thought he could handle it but he can't he can't he—

He's on the floor. The cold tile of the kitchen floor is pressing against his cheek. His eyes are gritty when he forces them open and he has to squint against the harsh kitchen light and he would panic about whatever the hell just happened but he's tired. He can barely summon the energy to push himself upright, much less think. Instead he shoved everything aside so he can focus.

James isn't in view and Bucky has an awful taste in his mouth.

How long has he been out?

The pen—the one he had been twirling—is on the floor a few paces away, its plastic casing snapped into pieces. Bucky turns his head and sees the oven clock.

Eight hours. He was unconscious—or whatever the hell had happened—for eight hours. The sun is beginning to set and Bucky feels like crap, his body grumbling through the process of getting to his feet. Dizziness nearly overtakes him and Bucky leans heavily against the counter to avoid falling while his world spins to a stop.

When he can balance again, Bucky grabs a glass and fills it with water, instincts he doesn't remember guiding him through each motion, his mind not even on the task as he drinks and then pulls out a box of crackers.

Once he finishes the glass he fills it again and drinks it. The crackers go back into the pantry and Bucky stands in the middle of the doorway between the kitchen and living room, not focused on anything, only moving to take a drink. His mind is scattered, nothing sticking long enough to prompt him into action.

He doesn't know how long he stands like that. Eventually, the thought of a shower gets loud enough that Bucky moves.

He showers, and the water is hot enough to draw him back into his body. He then rests his forehead against the wall while water streams down his back.

"Fuck."

 

*

 

The fourth day is a bust and the fifth day isn't much better and by the sixth day Bucky really needs food. He stands in the kitchen, staring at the almost empty pantry with empty eyes until he shakes his head and makes an effort to ground himself.

He has to get food. That is something he absolutely needs to do. It's a defined task: go out, get food, come back, eat.

Bucky showers again, makes an effort to dry his hair and then pull it back into a messy bun that leaves just as much hair hanging down as it does pulled up. But it suffices, and Bucky changes into his last relatively clean outfit, grabs his wallet and apartment key, and heads out.

To his surprise, the walk around the neighborhood is not as stressful as he had expected. Yes, he keeps looking around and he is well aware of the weapons he carries, but he isn't twitching or cursing every step.

He finds a grocer that is relatively close, not too crowded, and has everything he needs. Bucky loads up a cart with food from all of the food groups, with special attention to fruit and vegetables. Just because he has graduated from Banner's smoothies does not mean he can forgo the healthier side of things.

When he's in line, the cashier makes friendly, only half-scripted conversation with him while she scans his items.

"Paper or plastic?"

"Paper."

He pulls out a credit card and swipes it when prompted.

The money on the card comes from interesting sources. In the days leading up to Bucky's move, Stark, JARVIS, Steve, Hill, and Bucky had all worked to find where the passwords HYDRA had hardwired into the Winter Soldier's brain fit into bank accounts. And then they had discovered that Bucky had only ever been marked as MIA—something about Steve not allowing the status to go to KIA and the army had only corrected that when the Smithsonian exhibit started—leaving a bank account with a lot of back pay sitting with no one to empty it.

He had enough money for groceries. And possibly a few other things. Just a few.

He makes it back to the apartment without major incident. A mugger had eyed him at one point, but a flick of Bucky's wrist had moved the knife hidden there into view long enough for the mugger to realize that Bucky wasn't a good mark.

And now he has food. The Internet is a wonderful place to find good recipes, and Bucky finds one that requires ingredients he has. Soon he has a sandwich loaded with enough meat and greens that it probably counts as a full meal.

While he munches on that, he stares at the notebook that he had moved onto the table earlier that morning.

It burns his eyes, a sunspot that isn't bright but still manages to hurt.

His mind spasms and throws up that goddamned image of Steve looking up at him—

_"—you don't have to."_

And there's more, Steve taller and broader and broken beneath Bucky's fist, semiconscious but still mumbling the words the Winter Soldier could not comprehend but Bucky could,

_"'Cause I'm with you to the end of the line."_

Bucky moves without thinking, and the notebook ends up on the floor in the living room and Bucky just stares. He takes ten seconds to calm his breathing.

"You know you didn't mean to do that," James says. "You should pick it up."

"Right," Bucky mutters. He's in the process of setting the notebook back on the counter when he hears scratching at his door.

There are knives in his hands before he realizes what he's done and Bucky grits his teeth. He moves to the door as silently as he can, keeping a knife in his right hand but nothing in his left.

When he looks through the small lens in the door, he sees nothing.

More scratching. And then a short, high-pitched noise.

What.

"Uh," James says. He looks confused. "I think…we recognize that sound?"

Maybe.

Bucky slides the knife back where it belongs and takes the gun he keeps in the plant by the door—a plant Romanoff had insisted on, apparently.

Romanoff makes a good interior decorator. Definitely better than Steve.

Focus.

Bucky opens the door and looks down.

There is—

There is a cat. Outside his door. Meowing.

As Bucky and James watch with equally confused expressions, the black and white cat meows again and steps forward to rub against Bucky's leg. It seems to be completely unaware of the gun Bucky holds in his right hand, hidden from the hallway by the door.

"That's—" James starts, and falters.

"A cat," Bucky finishes. He tucks the gun into the back of his waistband. Something stirs in his head. "There were—we used to have cats. No. They were…nearby. Alley cats."

"Yeah," James says. "Yeah, there were. Stevie liked to draw 'em when they hung around."

Bucky shakes his head to clear it, filing the memory away for later. He then bends down, gently pushing the cat back into the hallway so it doesn't run around in his room. Bucky has his key with him so he lets the door close behind him and, to his confusion, the cat just sits down and stares at the door.

Its pupils dilate.

"Don't," Bucky says.

It tilts its head one way, and then the other.

"Don't," Bucky says again.

It starts meowing again.

Bucky stares at it. "You're awful."

"Oreo! Where are you? Oreooooo!"

Bucky glances over to where the young girl's voice is coming from. The person Bucky assumes is the owner rounds the bend a second later, her preteen features scrunched with worry.

Right before she repeats her call, she sees the cat and sags with relief.

"You silly cat! You worried me."

"It's yours?" Bucky asks.

"Yeah, she's prone to wandering." The girl bends down and holds out her hand, which has a treat resting on the palm. As the cat walks over, the girl keeps talking. "She always slips out but never leaves this floor. Say, are you the new neighbor?"

"Yes. I just moved in."

"Oh, really? Sorry for not introducing ourselves!"

"It's fine."

"Wait, you live in that room, right?" The girl points at Bucky's door. He nods. "Oh. Um. After the other guy moved out, Oreo liked to sneak in there. Guess she's gonna have to get used to someone being there now."

"I guess so."

"Sorry that she was pawing at your door. She'll stop in the next few days. Probably."

The girl stands up, the cat still clutched in her arms and looking decidedly less pleased with each passing second. Somehow, she adjusts the cat so that she can stick out a hand. "I'm Lacy, by the way. Nice to meet you!"

Bucky nearly extends his metal hand before he catches himself and shakes with his right. "James Buchanan. Likewise."

She has a strong grip and lets go before it gets awkward. "Well, see you around, Mr. Buchanan!"

In a few seconds she is gone.

Bucky glances down and sees that he has cat hair coating the shins of his black pants _._


	13. Friendship Ties

Bucky does laundry in the basement with the same machines as the other residents. The first time he does this, he notes that the machines are new. Suspiciously new. When Bucky texts Steve about them, Steve just replies that they're a gift to him and the neighbors from an anonymous concerned citizen.

Sure.

When he comes back up with his clean clothing, his door is cracked open.  He adjusts his pile of clothes, reaching for the gun he has holstered on his back.

He must make some sound—or his visitor is extremely vigilant—because he hears a voice before he can pull out the weapon.

"Relax, Barnes, it's just me."

Romanoff. Despite now knowing who the intruder is, Bucky still keeps his clothes in one hand so that he can wield a weapon with the other. When he enters, kicking the door shut behind him, he hears Romanoff stirring something in the kitchen. He drops off his laundry—his back itching the whole time from the knowledge that there is another highly-trained spy in _his_ apartment—and then goes to confront her.

He debates improving the lock on his door. It wouldn't stop her. At best it would slow her down.

Not worth it, then.

Romanoff looks different than she did a week ago. A new hairstyle. Shorter, curlier. But she is not dressed for a fight; she wears a jacket, leggings, and boots with heels tall enough to be weapons if broken off.  Bucky isn't fooled by her appearance.  There are at least three places to hide knives in her jacket alone.

She holds a mug in her left hand, a small spoon in her right.

"What? I stopped for hot cocoa." She nods towards a small package on the counter while putting the spoon in the drink.  It clinks against the side, making the same noise Bucky had heard when he first entered. "Got some extra packets for you, if you want it. Otherwise Clint will take it off my hands, so no pressure."

Bucky considers her reasons for doing that for a few seconds before deciding that he won't be able to figure them out. "Thanks."

Romanoff takes a sip of her cocoa, somehow keeping the spoon from sliding into her face. "You can put the knife away, Barnes. I'm not going to hurt you."

Bucky doesn't know when he had pulled the knife out.  He doesn't put the knife away. "Why did you break in?"

She takes another drink. Shrugs. "If I had knocked, would you have let me in?"

"No."

"And if, for some reason, you had let me in, would you have felt obligated to make me comfortable?"

Bucky frowns. Or maybe he was already frowning. "I don't know."

"If you're anything at all like Steve, the answer is yes. So I figured I would save us both the hassle of pretending like we're normal and let myself in. I left the door open so you would know, by the way."

Like he has any reason to doubt her skills.

"I don't know about you," James says, and Bucky almost forgets to stop himself from looking at the hallucination in case Romanoff notices, "but I like the idea of hot cocoa. It's not as good as Barton's, but it's still tasty.  Let's keep it. It _is_ getting colder after all."

That is true. Bucky has noticed the chill in the lower levels of the building, which are not heated as well as the upper floors.

And that reminds Bucky that he is still sorely lacking in warmer clothing. His bed sheets are not acceptable outdoor wear, though the comforter will make an excellent blanket—

_"C'mon, Stevie, scoot in! I won't fit in the fort if you don't move your butt over."_

_"Jeez, Buck. I gotta make sure I don't knock nothin' over first."_

_"Fine. But I ain't waitin' long, so hurry up."_

_"I know."_

"Barnes?"

He blinks. Romanoff is staring, her expression showing curiosity but otherwise unreadable.

"Why are you here?" Bucky asks to distract her from whatever he had just accidentally revealed and to distract himself from the memory.  He has already placed it as early childhood and will write it down later.

"I'm checking on you," she says. "You never texted me."

"You have her number?" James asks.

Bucky is more concerned with how she got his, and then he realizes that Stark probably preloaded it onto the phone.

"Besides, I figured I should visit before Steve has an aneurism and breaks down your door out of worry.  I can at least reassure him that you're alive and well."

"What?"

She rolls her eyes. "Just let it go, Barnes. I promise I am here to help. You can even search me for weapons if you want."

"You're carrying four knives, a garrote wire, and at least one pistol."

Romanoff is good at hiding what she feels, but Barnes can see the surprise that glints in her eyes before she takes another sip of her hot cocoa. "You're close. Five knives."

"I knew there was one in her left boot too," James mutters.

"What were you saying about Steve?"

She shrugs. "He gets your texts, but he still worries. It's a habit of his."

Bucky struggles to hide a frown. "He knows I'm fine."

"He does. He worries anyway. It's one of his many endearing qualities."

He doesn't understand—why is Steve worrying if he knows that Bucky isn't hurt or in pain?

"Because he cares about you, you dope," James says. "Why else?"

Bucky clenches his jaw to avoid responding. When he is confident he can ignore James again, he turns to one side and grabs a mug from the nearby cabinet while sheathing the knife. He moves with slow, deliberate motions, giving Romanoff ample time to slide away and keep her one-meter gap.

And she thought he hadn't noticed her discomfort if he got too close.

The hot cocoa is good once Bucky gets the milk-to-mix ratio right, which takes a few experimental sips. By the time he is drinking, Romanoff has moved to examining the kitchen as though she hasn't already. But Bucky knows that she has already searched his entire apartment. She is a spy.

It's what he would do.

"I didn't search your bedroom or bathroom," Romanoff says. When Bucky levels her with a blank stare, she shrugs. "It's your space." Her lips twist. "Consider it a trust exercise."

He believes her. He doesn't know why.

"Nice shirt," Romanoff comments. Bucky glances down out of habit. He's wearing a plain gray t-shirt and a black jacket. There's nothing significant about the shirt or the jacket or even the gloves he wears when he leaves his apartment. Now that he realizes he still has them on, Bucky sets down the mug of cocoa and takes off his gloves. He pretends not to notice Romanoff examining his metal hand.

"Thanks," Bucky says belatedly when James clears his throat.

"How many shirts do you actually have?" Romanoff asks. Bucky frowns at her. Why does she want to know?

Romanoff rolls her eyes. "Don't give me that look, Barnes. I'm doing this out of concern for you." He wonders how much it pains her to say that. "How many?"

"Five," Bucky replies.

"Five," she repeats. "Total?"

He nods.  He had been given them as part of his moving-away gifts.

She blinks. And then she is all business. "Right, we're going shopping. Right now."

"So that's why she came," James says.

Romanoff does check that Bucky is willing to go out. He can give her credit for that, at least. Within five minutes they are walking down the street, Bucky in his only jacket to stave off the late autumn chill and Romanoff looking like any other young woman on the sidewalk. She stands close, and Bucky understands without having to be told that they are going with the couple cover.  She does an excellent job of hiding her reactions to his presence.

James is gone, chased away by the abundant people and city noise.

"Steve and I did this, once," Romanoff says casually as they turn a corner. "He wasn't as good as you are. He kissed me. Did he tell you about that?"

He did what.

She laughs and it is hard to tell how much is genuine and how much is for the couple currently walking past them. "I guess not." She goes quiet, and Bucky glances over to see that her expression has gone blank, the kind of blank that indicates thinking.

She wants to say something, but she doesn't. They find the first store before the need to fill the silence finds Bucky.

Romanoff puts her hair up and Bucky raises an eyebrow at her in a silent query about their destination.  He does not feel threatened, even though he has not been here before.  It is odd, how easy it is to trust Romanoff despite her background.  Despite the fact that she shot him in the face.

"You need to be prepared for winter," Romanoff explains while she leads the way into the bowels of the small shop tucked away between two other stores. "I know the perfect places to get warm gear."

While she directs him to the section with hats, gloves, and scarves Bucky works out the question swimming in his head.

"Why are you doing this?"

Romanoff pauses in the middle of handing Bucky a gray beanie. He can see her debating whether to tell the truth. She sighs, letting her outstretched arm drop.

"We have shared history," she says.

"The bridge."

"No."

What?

"Before that," Romanoff continues. Her tone is light and her expression is cheery—the person at the register is watching them with the bored interest of someone with nothing else to do. "Let's just say you were one of my teachers, and I now have the chance to make some things right. We can talk about it more later, if you want."

He doesn't know if he wants that. But he nods anyway, even though the explanation doesn't explain much at all.

"Here," Romanoff says, offering the beanie again. "You have nice hair, but it isn't going to keep you warm."

They end up getting two beanies, an actual warm hat, two scarves, three pairs of gloves—the first two for hiding his metal hand and the last one because they were really fucking comfortable—and earmuffs. The guy at the counter rings them up and Romanoff pays, offering the half-assed excuse that Bucky has just moved to New York from Arizona. The guy hums and Bucky knows he actually believes it even though Bucky is as pale as they come.

He'll forget about them in five minutes, anyway.

Romanoff carries the bags and they find a second store. This one has a few other customers browsing and Bucky forces out some easy small talk until Romanoff can take over the talking and Bucky can browse the pants and shirts.

He picks out lots of sweatpants. They look comfortable and soft and easy to move in. And then he grabs some jeans because they look good.

By the time he gets to shirts, Romanoff is back and helping him browse.

("Do you like flannel? Actually, never mind. You're friends with Steve. Of course you like flannel.")

The third store has a fantastic variety of footwear. Bucky gets boots, slippers, and then some casual shoes because his current ones are falling apart. And he gets a kickass pair of boots because he saw them out of the corner of his eye and couldn't look away.

By the time they are heading home, Bucky has stopped at two more stores and gotten three sweatshirts—two of which are oversized—a vest, and a heavy coat. He and Romanoff have to spend a few minutes at the final store organizing all the bags so they can carry them without blocking off an entire sidewalk.

"Where did you get the money for this?" Bucky asks while they walk.

"Tony found out that you owned less than Steve in terms of clothing. He got offended that you hadn't said anything."

"How did he find that out?"

"Barnes," Romanoff says, shooting him a sly smile, "you recycled outfits every few days. It wasn't hard to figure out.  He would have given you more when you moved, but he didn't know if he should."

"Oh."

Romanoff is quiet for a few steps.

"Steve has a phrase for Stark's methods. What was it? Oh, right. He's trying to build a bridge by buying the bricks."

"I burned that bridge," Bucky says. "I killed his parents."

"I'm sure you and Steve and Tony have already had that discussion, so I won't say what I know Steve has already said to you. But Tony is a good person, and he's trying. So are you. Therefore, money."

"That's…" he has to think for a while. "Strange."

"I was going to say maladjusted, but strange works too."

He smiles without thinking.

It feels weird.

They get back to the apartment and Bucky sets to putting everything away. It takes some time; he isn't used to having so much. But everything has its proper place, and by the time is done his closet is comfortingly packed. He has eight pairs of pants.  _Eight._

"Man, if Stevie could see us now," James says. He's sitting in the desk chair, his legs swinging while he smiles. "We're loaded, pal."

"Hey, Barnes," Romanoff says from the kitchen, "you left your boots in here."

Right. The boots. He goes to get them and finds Romanoff holding the notebook.

Bucky's brain screeches to a halt and he shakes with the effort of keeping still. He can't control his breathing and the plates on his metal arm are clicking into alignment for combat and he can't—

Romanoff makes eye contact. Her face drains of color and she sets the notebook down, steps back.  Lifts her hands.

She has stepped away from the notebook. Her hands are empty.

"I am sorry, Barnes," she says.

She is not holding any weapons. She is not touching the notebook. She has not opened the notebook.

"Hey, pal, it's okay," James says. "We're okay. We just gotta calm down, all right? Count to ten. Deep breaths. There you go."

Bucky finally unclenches his right fist and as the tension bleeds from his muscles he reaches up and scrubs a hand across his face.

"I'm sorry," Romanoff repeats. "I didn't open it."

Bucky takes another deep breath and lets it out while focusing on getting his left arm loose again. "It's okay."

She hadn't known what it is. What it means.

How it is Bucky's entire goddamn world outside of Steve.

He grabs the notebook and the boots and puts them in his room. When he returns, Romanoff has calmed down and her expression is as inscrutable as ever.

"There's something else I meant to give you," she says.

"It's like Christmas," James comments.

"What is it?" Bucky asks.

"These." Romanoff puts a few packages on the counter. Bucky picks one up and James stifles something that isn't a cough.

"Hair ties," Bucky says. He hadn't even seen her pick them up.

"They're the brand I use," Romanoff says. "Reliable. And I figured it would be easier for you to do chores without your hair falling in your face."

It's—thoughtful. Something Bucky hadn't even considered.

"Thank you."

She smiles—quicksilver and honest—and then checks her phone. "I have to meet a friend of mine for dinner, but I enjoyed our shopping trip. You're not bad company, Barnes."

He doesn't know what to make of her. He picks up the hair ties, noting that Romanoff had gotten both plain black and the rainbow packages.

"By the way," Romanoff says, pausing near the doorway. Bucky glances up, curiosity mingling with the fatigue pulling on his bones. "You can call me Natasha."

And then she's gone.


	14. Names and Information

Bucky spends the next two days lounging and growing more comfortable with leaving his apartment to perform simple tasks. He goes grocery shopping, gets more food.  Healthier food, at James's urging. He video chats with Steve while preparing an omelet based on Internet instructions, and Steve smiles and laughs when Bucky over-flips and the eggs splatters on the floor.  Bucky flips him off.  Steve has to hang up because of a mission.

He does more patrols of the building, of course. He's comfortable, but he's not stupid.

The man with the peanut butter is playing Adele and muttering odd phrases under his breath. Bucky decides that he is not going to investigate further unless the man proves to be a threat.

Nightmares still plague him at night, but most of the time he can fall back into a fitful sleep. He always wakes up tired, but breakfast and morning exercise help.

His left arm has begun functioning oddly, so Bucky takes a trip to a local hardware store—and there is a bad moment there, a flashback that has him shaking and sweating—but he hides in a back aisle until he can breathe again and then gets the tools he needs.

They taught him how to do maintenance on his arm. It was necessary, in case it got damaged before a mission was complete. So Bucky takes the tools, sits at the kitchen table, pops open the necessary panels, and begins basic tuning of the internal structures.

He's finishing up when he hears someone approaching the door. The knocks comes a moment later.

"Mr. Buchanan? It's Lacy!"

He could act as though he isn't here. But that would be rude, and he has no reason to. Lacy is not a threat and Bucky hasn't talked to her enough to really form an opinion on whether he enjoys talking to her or not.

"One minute," he calls. He puts the panels back in place, sets his tools in a kitchen drawer, and then slips on a long-sleeve shirt and a glove to cover his hand.

In his head, he thanks Romanoff.

"She did say you could call her Natasha," James points out while Bucky goes to the door.

He's thanking Natasha, then.

Bucky opens the door and raises an eyebrow at the young girl standing there.

"Hello," Lacy greets. For some reason, she has green paint on her brown skin. "My dads and I were wondering if you wanted to come over for dinner at six tonight. Y'know, as a neighborly welcoming party. We're in the room down 'round the corner—first one on the left." She smiles. "No pressure, though!"

Bucky had been expecting something like this. He sees no reason to say no; he has grown more confident in this place, and the prospect of eating with company does not make his skin crawl. He will just have to flesh out his backstory and keep his head when he goes.

Besides, he does not feel like making his own dinner tonight.

He smiles—and thanks to Natasha's advice from their shopping trip, he knows it does not look as forced as before—and looks into Lacy's vibrant brown eyes.

"I'd be happy to. Tell your fathers that I appreciate the invitation."

It's only after he closes the door that he registers the "dads" and "fathers."

"Pretty sure someone mentioned this at some point," James says. "Things really are different in the future."

"Yeah," Bucky mutters. "Guess they are."

Manners from long past tell him that he should bring some kind of dessert to this dinner. He scours the Internet for a simple recipe and finds one for brownies that he can make with the ingredients he already has. And since he has almost five hours until the dinner, he doesn't feel rushed.

He calls Steve again and talks to him while he bakes, the phone tucked between his ear and shoulder.

"Yeah, I got invited to dinner. They seem nice enough—two fathers, a young girl named Lacy."

_"Buck, that's great."_

"Their cat met me first."

_"Cat?"_

"Turns out they're good for more than just mice-control," Bucky says. "They named it Oreo."

_"I almost feel bad for it. Black and white?"_

"Yes. Cute, though. Apparently it used to hang out in this apartment when it had no occupant. Lacy found it after I went into the hallway to figure out what it was."

_"That had to be a surprise, huh."_

"Little bit."

There is a lull in the conversation before Steve picks up the slack.

_"Say, do you want to grab a meal sometime? I know I've been busy with missions lately but—"_

Bucky laughs. He's in a good mood and he can't help it. "Steve, of course you can. We're pals—you don't need to ask like this is some kind of dinner date. You can come over tomorrow afternoon if you want."

_"I—yeah, of—that—that would be great."_

They chat for a few more minutes about nothing in particular before Steve has to go. Bucky stares at the dark screen for a while. Steve had sounded so relieved at Bucky's invitation.

"You have been avoiding seeing him in person since he first dropped you off here," James points out. "The big lug probably misses you."

A pang of guilt shoots through Bucky. He misses Steve too; but with everything going on and trying to get his new situation sorted, he had shoved that feeling to one side because it wasn't necessary or helpful.

"Suppression is not the answer, pal," James says.

"He's coming tomorrow," Bucky says as a reply. He returns his attention to the brownies.

 

*

 

When he knocks on the door, an older man with darker skin and some white showing in his brown hair answers. He smiles when he sees Bucky.  The lines around his eyes bunch up when he does that.

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Buchanan," he says, opening the door wider and stepping back so that Bucky can enter. "My name is Manuel Gomez. Lacy has talked a lot about you." He notices the small plate of brownies in Bucky's hands. "Oh, is that for—here, let me take it. Thank you for bringing dessert—you didn't have to. Ah, Keno will be here in a moment, he's just finishing up the sauce."

Manuel shows Bucky to their living room—their apartment layout is the same as his, and Bucky takes a seat while Manuel bustles over to the kitchen to drop off the brownies. If he had noticed the fact that Bucky wears a glove on his left hand, he doesn't give any indication.

Lacy bounces into the room.

"Where's your cat?" Bucky asks to start up some conversation.

"Oh, we put him in my room," Lacy explains. "We didn't want him causing any trouble. We always do it when there are guests over; if we don't, he sometimes panics and then things get bad."

Bucky nods and Lacy shifts back and forth on her feet. "D'you want anything to drink? Water?"

"Water would be great," Bucky says.

When Lacy returns with the water, she brings Manuel and a man Bucky assumes to be Keno in tow. Keno is taller than Manuel by several inches, with black skin and hair done up in dreadlocks. Bucky stands to greet him.

He has a bright smile, and when he shakes Bucky's hand, his grip is firm and warm.

"It's good to meet you, Mr. Buchanan," he says. "I'm Keno."

"Likewise," Bucky responds. "And you can call me James." He glances over at Manuel to include him in the invitation. They both smile.

Bucky doesn't know where his words come from—echoes of the man he was, maybe, or maybe he just listened to enough conversations to rebuild some semblance of how to talk to other people—but when he speaks he does so with easy confidence.

"So I've heard that Lacy has been talking about me. I hope she didn't accuse me of trying to steal your cat."

It takes them a moment to understand that he's joking. From there, conversation heads to safe, small-talk type areas while the Gomez family finishes preparing dinner. By the time Bucky sits at the table, his nerves have stopped fizzling and he doesn't feel as though he is forcing himself to talk anymore. Keno and Manuel are clever and their banter fills any empty spaces in the conversation. Lacy always pitches in; she seems to have a special interest in the arts, which would explain the paint from earlier.  Bucky guesses that, if he were to look around, he would find a canvas or something with paints set up in one of the rooms.

Keno is a fantastic cook; Bucky doesn't recognize half the ingredients in the pasta dish but they come together beautifully. No one speaks until they're finishing up.

"So, Mr. Buchanan," Manuel begins. "What brought you to this place?"

"Not to pry or anything," Keno adds with a raised eyebrow at his husband.

Bucky smiles at them. "No worries." He'd prepped for this. "Some of my buddies helped set me up here. I couldn't afford much else with just odd jobs around the neighborhood, so." He shrugs, the guesture perfectly calculated to be self-deprecating but not to elicit pity.

Manuel and Keno exchange a look. "We know what that feels like."

Keno gives him an earnest look. "If you need jobs, I own a tattoo parlor. I wouldn't mind hiring another janitor, or something of the sort."

Manuel puts a hand on Keno's shoulder and directs sympathetic eyes to Bucky. "We'd have to do a little more talking first, of course."

"Of course," Bucky says. "I will let you know if I need the help. Thank you for offering it to your new, strange neighbor."

"You're not strange!" Lacy says immediately. "I mean, the glove is weird but—"

"Lacy," Keno reprimands. Manuel just sighs.

"Sorry," Lacy mutters.

"It's okay," Bucky says. "Well. A little personal for a first meeting."

Nervous laughter.

"I, um. I was a soldier. And." Deep breath. "There was an explosion, and my left arm. Got." He works his jaw as though searching for a word that can convey what he means properly and coming up short. "It got burned. Hence the glove."

And he feels—bad, in a detached way, about killing the dinner conversation. And lying. But he has to make it clear to these guys that he isn't going to be a happy-go-lucky neighbor, and this way he can explain the need to cover up his metal arm and his PTSD and other trauma-related illnesses. It's just slapping a new story on the same problems and cutting off any curiosity before it can get dangerous.

Manuel and Keno look shocked and lost, while Lacy is staring with wide eyes and her lips slightly parted as though guilt hasn't had time to set in yet.

Bucky holds up a hand—his right hand—before anyone can get out any apologies. "I'm getting used to it," he says. "But let's talk about something else, if that's all right."

"Y-yeah, of course," Manuel says. "Does the heating in your apartment work? With winter coming—and sometimes it doesn't work, like—uh, Jim's apartment a few weeks back."

"Jim?" Bucky repeats, and Keno groans quietly. Bucky's curiosity grows and he lifts an eyebrow.

"He's the weirdo!" Lacy declares, having recovered from her earlier surprise. She seems determined to forcibly inject energy into the conversation to make up for the lull. Upon realizing that Keno and Manuel were giving each other exasperated looks, Lacy backtracked. "Okay, he's the strange guy. He _is_ strange," she adds, jutting out her bottom lip.

"I'm a little lost," Bucky admits, something in his head stirring at Lacy's stubborn expression. But James isn't around to elaborate on the memory, if the faint familiarity can even be called that. "Who is…Jim?"

"He lives in room 203," Manuel explains. "Only a couple of us have actually laid eyes on him. He's…different."

Bucky runs the room number though what he recalls from his nightly patrols and comes up with the man who was slurping peanut butter. Pretending not to know anything will get him more information, though, so he feigns confusion.

"Different?"

"How do I explain this," Keno mutters. "Okay, well. I've moved around a lot, and I've noticed a pattern in—well, almost every apartment building."

"Which is what?" Manuel prods.

"It's…y'know. There's always one or two people in a building that behave oddly. And not for any reason besides to weird people out. Like their identity is to be the opposite of what people expect." Keno glances at Manuel, somewhat at a loss for words. "Do you get it?"

Manuel shrugs. "Sounds like Jim. Did you know that when I first saw him, he threw a piece of bread at me?"

"You never told that story," Lacy says.

"Well, it was a baguette. I have no idea where he got it—the closest bakery is too far to be reasonable, and the bread was still warm."

A strange person in every apartment building. For some reason, Bucky can't stop thinking about those words. He and Steve used to live in apartments, didn't they? Separately, and then…what? Together?

"Mrs. Grothan," James says, and Bucky hadn't noticed him appear but now he's leaning against the wall behind Keno. "She lived on the first floor. We could never figure her out. Not even Steve, and he tried. She just didn't like people an' didn't care what she did to make them go away."

Oh.

But he has to participate in this conversation before he can dive into his memories.

"A baguette?" Bucky repeats. "That's…odd."

"That's Jim in a nutshell," Manuel replies. "We have collectively decided to leave him alone."

"Reasonable," Bucky says. "I suppose I'll do the same. Any other warnings I should keep in mind?"

Manuel sucks on his lip and glances at Keno. "I dunno. The college student on the first floor mostly keeps to herself. She appreciates leftovers, though. So if you ever more than you can eat before it goes bad, she'll take it. There's the couple—also on the first floor, what were their names?"

"I think Jane and Dorian," Keno supplies.

"Thanks. Yeah, they're very kind. Love cartoons, though, so if you go over you'll have to be careful not to get sucked into their weekend marathons."

"I'll keep that in mind," Bucky says.

"What else…oh, there's another resident on the second floor. Ananda, I think it was. She just got a job, so she's pretty busy. She makes fantastic coffee, though."

"I got her recipe," Keno declares. "It's heavenly."

"You won't let me drink it," Lacy says.

"That's because you have enough energy already. Wouldn't want you vibrating through the walls, would we?"

"That would be _so. Cool!_ "

Keno playfully argues with Lacy while Manuel goes back to thinking.

"There was one more thing. There have been some groups of young men harassing people around this neighborhood."

"Young men?" Bucky repeats, thinking of the mugger. Manuel nods.

"From what I've heard, some privileged boys—"

"Privileged _white_ boys," Keno corrects, momentarily breaking away from his staring contest against Lacy.

"Right. There aren't as many cops around here. They come down and mess with people."

"No one has done anything?" Bucky asks with a raised eyebrow. He knows from his memories that Brooklyn had been a tough neighborhood, but he had gotten the impression that a lot of that behavior was treated harshly now throughout the city.

"They're just being boys," Manuel says, and the way he says _just being boys_ is filled with so much disgust that even Lacy looks at him with concern. Manuel smiles, apologetic. "Sorry. You should be careful when walking around, just in case, though the worst thing I've heard of them doing is nearly forcing themselves on a young woman. Fortunately she got away."

"Assholes," James mutters.

Bucky agrees. But he's a veteran at a dinner party with his new neighbors now, so he just voices some disapproving comments and lets the conversation carry into lighter topics about accommodations and interesting places around the city.

Soon the sunlight is entirely gone from the windows and Bucky is saying his goodbyes, holding a small container with pie in it that he has promised to return to them as soon as possible.

Lacy is the last to wave before they shut the door and Bucky walks back to his apartment, silent and contemplative and alone ** _._**


	15. Stormy Thoughts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I appreciate every single one of you who reads and enjoys this story, but I would love to hear from more of you in the comments. This story leans heavily on characterization and my understanding of Bucky's issues, but I want to make my portrayal as realistic as possible. Your feedback would really help with that!

He calls Steve early the next morning after going grocery shopping (Rom— _Natasha_ had recommended a brand of less processed chocolate, and after trying it, Bucky approves) and he has to stifle a wave of guilt in response to the relief in Steve's tone when Bucky invites him over for brunch.

"You weren't avoiding him," James says, but James is wrong.

Bucky has most definitely been avoiding Steve. Just like he had done for those six months after Insight, when his brain had been broken cells firing jagged thoughts through shattered connections.

_The man on the bridge._

He only has bits and pieces of that first fight, but he knows that Steve ( _familiar shield familiar face who the hell is_ Bucky) had stuck in his brain. And Bucky had known since he dragged Steve out of the Potomac with the helicarriers burning in the distance that Steve would have more answers than Bucky's brain could provide (as if Bucky could really trust his brain in the first place) but Bucky just—he hadn't been able to stay, to talk to the man he knew he'd known. He'd needed space and he'd needed time to figure the world out again so he'd left.

And somewhere along the way he had dragged some semblance of a personality out of the missions and orders and skills, a personality that grew with every memory that flashed through his brain.

Then, he'd had a reason to stay away. He hadn't known who (or what) he was, or what his purpose in being alive had been. He'd just known that he needed to survive, and he had. The man on the bridge had taken a backseat to Bucky's life.

And now Bucky is here, in his own apartment, inviting Steve over for brunch because they haven't seen each other face-to-face in over a week. Bucky stares at the dark phone screen, and knows he should have done this sooner.

James watches with a neutral expression as Bucky throws together a simple brunch of French toast, bacon, sausage, fruit, and pancakes. Normally Bucky would decide between French toast and pancakes but with Steve coming he needs to make more food than usual.

It's lucky that he had bought everything he needs from the grocery store earlier.

He's putting the last of the pancakes on the plate when he hears footsteps coming up the rickety stairs. He recognizes that gait.

_Steve._

Bucky finishes up just in time to open the door right before Steve would have knocked.  Bucky smiles, and it isn't forced or pretend because having Steve standing there eases tension in his chest he hasn't realized he's been holding. "You're on time," Bucky says to cover the way his face slipped out of his control.

Steve blinks, dropping the hand he had been about to knock with. "I am," he agrees, still looking at Bucky with a strange expression on his face.

"I bet it's the bun," James says. "Steve can't handle his best pal wearing a _bun_."

Well he'd better get used to it because Bucky's discovered that having his hair up is a hell of a lot more efficient than having it flying around his face while he's working.

Anyway, Steve is still standing there like a dumbass so Bucky gets him inside, shuts the door, and directs Steve to the small table set up right by the kitchen. He can see Steve examining the apartment as he walks through it, but there isn't much to observe. Bucky has gone out and bought a few paintings and plants to decorate, but the place still feels empty.

Well. Less so now that Steve is here.

Steve pulls himself together enough to whistle when he sees all the food Bucky's put out on the table.

"Guess I don't have to worry much about your diet anymore," he says. Bucky stiffens—tries not to—but it's. Uncomfortable. To talk about his health.  Steve must realize that too because he tries to backtrack.

"Did the smoothies—you don't need them anymore?"

Bucky nods, swallows, and gestures to the table. The movement is stiff. Inefficient without being human. "Sit down, Steve."

"Yeah, okay."

Steve's concerns for Bucky's physical health are valid, but Bucky has been adjusting to an actual diet for months now. The knockoff version of the serum has helped his recovery, and as long as Bucky avoids extremely processed foods—candy, things like that—he'll be okay.

Besides, the smoothies were awful. French toast and pancakes are much better.

Steve takes his first bite and Bucky watches as his eyebrows shoot up. He says something around the food in his mouth but even with enhanced hearing Bucky can't understand it. He cocks his head, signaling that he hadn't understood.

Steve gets the message and swallows, taking a drink of juice before he says, "I didn't realize you were practicing your cooking."

"Can't have protein bars all the time," Bucky replies. Steve smiles in response to that, but his eyes are tight.

And then Bucky realizes that Steve has dark circles under his eyes. That his hair is messier than Bucky remembers it usually being. That his clothes are rumpled despite an obvious attempt on Steve's part to dress better.

Oh.

_Oh._

Steve. Pal.

He—he needs a minute. Bucky eats his food and watches Steve and catalogues all the other signs that Steve is not okay.

He should have noticed sooner. During their calls Steve has been so eager to talk, so eager to ask questions and too quick to find something else to talk about whenever Bucky deflected instead of answered as though the idea of Bucky not saying anything was worse than talking about nothing.

Steve has been hanging on Bucky's every word, anxious to know that Bucky is doing okay and Bucky hasn't even _noticed_ , too busy building up his fake life.

This cannot continue. Bucky doesn't know Steve Rogers as much as he wants to but he knows seeing Steve like this makes static in his head and makes him want to punch the nearest convenient wall.

Which is…a strange urge. Unusual, one that is and isn't familiar.  One that is worth documenting.

"Steve," Bucky says. He has to repeat it before Steve finally meets his eyes. "Are you sleeping?"

Guilt. Without a doubt, that is guilt in Steve's eyes. "Yeah, Buck, I am. Why?"

"Liar," James says.

"Liar," Bucky says. Steve looks surprised and Bucky presses, something bursting into life in his head that hasn't been there before, hasn't been so warm. "Are you eating? Hydrating? Socializing? Exercising?"

"I'm—"

"Don't lie to me, Rogers," Bucky says. "Is it because I left?"

Steve doesn't even have to speak. His eyes give it all away. Bucky has to look away, working his jaw until his body is vibrating so much he can't take it.  He stands, pushing his chair back and taking fast, deliberate steps into the living room area where he goes to the wall and draws his hand back and _almost_ —

He doesn't punch the wall. Stops himself at the last second, reduces the attack to a tap and then he's resting his forehead against the wall, trying to even out his breathing and reassert control because _what the fuck was that._

Steve is getting closer, his footsteps softening when he transitions from kitchen tile to carpet and Bucky still hasn't gotten his own body under control.

"Buck?" Steve asks. "Is there anything I can do?"

Stop speaking like that. Stop worrying about me. Stop treating me like I'll shatter when you're the one on the edge. Stop, stop, _stop_.

Bucky knocks his closed fist against the wall one more time and takes a deep breath before he turns to face the man still stirring the firestorm inside of Bucky that he's never noticed before but now it's raging in his head, swirling his thoughts and he thinks Steve sees part of it in Bucky's eyes because there's a look on his face that Bucky thinks is familiar not from recent months but years and years and years ago.

"You didn't answer my question," Bucky finally says, somehow keeping his voice level.

"I—I'm fine, Buck. I'm a damned super soldier. I can handle myself.  Ar—"

"Liar," Bucky repeats. The storm surges. "You aren't handling anything, Steve, I'm not fucking blind. I thought the brunch would help but clearly you need more than that."

And Bucky won't admit that he needs more of Steve because now that he's here, standing in front of him, Bucky is realizing that he's been cold this whole time and Steve is everything he needs to keep warm, a lighthouse in an awful storm.

"Buck, I—"

"No protesting," Bucky interrupts. He takes a deep breath, closing his eyes. He has to calm down. He has to tame whatever emotion is trying to take control—whatever emotion is dislodging instincts and memories at a rate that has Bucky acting barely within reason—or he's going to do something stupid. "Steve, you're gonna come here every day, if that's what it takes to get you functioning well again."

"Functioning well?" Steve blinks, shakes his head a little. "You meant for this to be your place. I'm not going to intrude daily on _your_ space. Besides, the neighbors will recognize me pretty quickly."

James is both there and not there but Bucky is pretty sure they speak in unison.

"I don't give a shit Rogers, you are not wasting away over _me_."

Steve's eyes go wide. The storm inside Bucky whirls to an uneasy stop, leaving Bucky shaken and chilled but he keeps his eyes trained on Steve's and tries to mentally force Steve to get the message.

Steve does. Bucky watches the fight leave him to get replaced with a slow, drained sigh. "Okay, Buck. Okay.  If you say so." And then the worry comes back. "Are you o—I mean, is there anything you need?"

Right. Freak out. Weird memory-emotion lapse episode-thing.

He's tired. But they only got most of the way through breakfast and Bucky is still hungry.

So Bucky heads for the table. "I need more pancakes."

That doesn't diffuse the tension in his apartment entirely, but it makes the rest of brunch bearable. Steve hangs around afterwards and Bucky doesn't see any advantages in making him leave. So while Steve uses the bathroom, Bucky sends a text to Ro—Natasha. It's tricky with his left hand, but he manages once he discovers that the tips of the fingers do work with the touch screen. He finds it amusing that HYDRA thought to put in touch screen compatibility with his metal hand, though it would be useful when breaking into places for assassinations.  Keeping their pet monster updated with all the latest tech.

_Steve here. Idk how to entertain_

The dots appear and disappear a couple of times before she replies.

_Movie marathon? Works for me and Clint. Could also go walking.  Big city  
_

A pause. Then:

_Do u need backup? :)_

The idea of him needing backup is so odd it's almost funny. The smiley face is a little confusing, but he replies with a quick negative and a thank you just as Steve comes back to the kitchen.

Bucky slides his phone back into his pocket, ignoring Steve's curious glance, and then begins to look for popcorn. He's not sure if he has any; it isn't a common food, and it tends to be processed enough to make his stomach uneasy, but he'd bought a lot of things on impulse and if he did he would probably put it—

"What're you lookin' for?" Steve asks.

"Popcorn," Bucky replies. "We can watch a picture. Unless you have somewhere to go."

"A—wow. Yeah, that would be—that'd be great. Um. Do you have any movie in mind?"

"No."

He finally finds the popcorn—shoved way in the back, untouched in its proper place—and scans the instructions.

"I have a list," Steve offers.

"Sounds fine."

He finds a bowl and shoves the package into the microwave, plugging in the appropriate time.

"I'll see if Tony has a way for us to get them," Steve says while the machine hums.

By the time they have everything set up, Bucky has grabbed his memory notebook and begun writing everything that has happened. He's also provided Steve with a sketchbook and pencil. Neither one of them is really paying attention to the movie—which has animated people fighting glowing green things—but that's fine. Bucky's thoughts have finally stopped rushing around and Steve doesn't look as though he's going to cry anymore.

Well, not cry. But the next closest thing for super soldiers with super emotional issues.

While he writes, Bucky tries to figure out what emotion had him shouting at Steve, being rude to Steve, and just. Losing control.

It's not something he can easily identify. Just that heat—like anger but directed, existing _because_ of something and Bucky doesn't know what.  He's writing what it felt like—a firestorm, swirling and igniting every word passing through his brain—when he glances at Steve and realizes what it is.

Because what had started it was seeing Steve tired. Seeing him stressed. Seeing him not taking proper care of himself.

That was—had been—had to have been—protective _something_. Protective instincts or anger Bucky can't tell, but it's one of the two or both. And it had been for Steve, coming with the deep-rooted familiarity that lets Bucky know that this is something from before the serum, the war, everything. He's always been protective of Steve. Always.

_"Get outta here. Go pick on someone your own size."_

_"I had 'im on the ropes."_

_"I know you did, punk."_

He writes that down, too.

They notice the movie is over about halfway through the credits, and that's only because they both reach for the popcorn and realize the bowl is empty. But Bucky has written everything down (and figured some stuff out) and Steve appears to have finished his drawing.

"What did you draw?" Bucky asks, and Steve gets a sheepish expression on his face.

"A lotta things."

"What?"

"The room. Some stuff from the movie. You."

"Me?" Bucky doesn't much care about the other stuff. He tries to catch a glimpse of Steve's sketchbook but Steve leans just enough to cut off Bucky's line of sight.

"Yes, you. I'm not done with that one yet, though. You can't see it until I'm finished."

"Oh come on," James mutters, peering over Steve's shoulder. "You can't _hide_ the drawing, Steve."

"What is it?" Bucky asks, to both James and Steve.

"I'm not saying," Steve says. James just stares at Bucky.

"Pal. I can only see what you see, even if I'm standing over here. I have no idea what the drawing is, just that Steve's being dumb and not letting us look at it just because he isn't finished."

That makes sense, but Bucky still finds it annoying. What's the point of hallucinating if the hallucinations don't help him?

"I _do_ help you!" James protests.

Not when it counts.

"Asshole."

The whole time Bucky has been surreptitiously trying to lean over and find out what Steve is so determined to keep secret, but Steve is just as surreptitiously keeping the sketch out of sight.

Finally Bucky gives up. "Fine."

He grabs the empty bowl of popcorn—now just sad, unpopped kernels—and carries it over to the kitchen. He rinses it out after dumping the crumbs in the trash, and then spends a few seconds drying off his metal hand. Water tends to slide between the plates, and while the mechanisms are entirely waterproof, having liquid stuck in there can get annoying when it slides out onto whatever Bucky is holding or wearing.

Which is half the reason he rips the sleeves off his combat gear, the other half being that the shifting plates can accidentally tear the material.

By the time he returns to the couch, Steve has gotten up and is examining one of the plants in the corner.

"It's not dead," Bucky says. Steve jumps a little.

"Right, 'course. I was just wondering where you got it."

"There's a small florist a few blocks away."

"Oh."

Steve looks uncomfortable. Bucky supposes it's time to separate. He hopes—somewhat sarcastically—that Steve can make it through the night without him.

And then he regrets the sarcasm.

These protective instincts aren't going to go away, are they?

"No, they are not," James says, and he sounds far too proud.

"See you tomorrow?" Bucky says before things can get awkward. Steve nods quickly.

"Yes—yeah. Noon?"

"Works for me."

"Bye, Buck."

"Bye, Steve."

The door closes and Bucky spends a few minutes listening to Steve leave. Steve hesitates outside the door and Bucky wonders what's going through his mind, whether Steve will make some excuse to come back inside or just leave.

Two more seconds pass. Bucky hears Steve sigh, followed by his footsteps retreating down the hall and then down the stairs.

He's…not disappointed. Not surprised. He just.

_"It's like you two are joined at the hip."_

_"With how fast Stevie walks, I don't thi—ow!"_

_"Jerk."_

_"Punk."_

He just doesn't know what to do. He knows he can't become too reliant on Steve, but he doesn't want to hurt Steve by staying away. And it doesn't help that watching Steve leave hurts Bucky too.  It's a mess. One that Bucky is unprepared to deal with. He shoves it in with all the other messes he doesn't want to deal with yet—including the vague nausea bubbling in his gut.

His bedroom is as he left it hours ago, the sheets still rumpled from when Bucky had messed with them that morning just in case Steve saw them neat and thought Bucky wasn't sleeping.

(He is sleeping. A little.)

There's something on his bed. Bucky approaches with a knife in hand, mentally rewinding the past few hours to find a point at which an intruder could have snuck in and planted what he suspects is an explosive.

"Steve is the only other person who's been here," James says from the doorway. "And that's not an explosive. It's a piece of paper."

James is right. Bucky sheathes the knife and picks up the piece of paper. Steve must have put it in Bucky's room while Bucky was distracted.

One the one hand, it is sloppy on Bucky's part. On the other, it is sneaky on Steve's.

The drawing brings with it echoes of the first time Bucky saw one of Steve's drawings post-HYDRA. But this drawing is not of Bucky sleeping with his face turned away; this drawing is of Bucky awake. He has popcorn in one hand, his eyes fixed on something not drawn on the page. Bucky does not remember sitting on the couch with his legs tucked like that, but if he thinks about it his muscles remember the position.

Steve put…a distressing amount of effort into Bucky's facial features and hair. Especially his eyes. It is. Disconcerting.

Holding the paper makes the floor sway under Bucky's feet and old voices that have no source bounce around in his head. He sets it down and looks away until the vertigo passes. Once he is sure he is not going to get unwillingly thrown into his memories, Bucky takes the drawing and pins it up next to the first one Steve gave him as a housewarming gift.

He steps back and examines the two pictures. They were not drawn far apart, relatively speaking. But Steve's style is distinctly different between them.

"Things have changed pretty quickly," James says. "A year ago we didn't know who we really were. Now we do."

"Roughly," Bucky corrects.

"Give yourself a little more credit. You're getting there."

"Hm."

 

*

 

That night, it storms for the first time in weeks. Bucky had been watching the clouds all day, so when they finally open up and the rain comes down in sheets Bucky is ready on his couch with a mug of hot cocoa and a book. The drink isn't as good as Barton's, but it will do.

The first low rumble of thunder has the plates in his metal arm shifting with soft clicks and Bucky has to forcibly unclench his jaw.  He puts down the mug.

He can do this.

His room flashes blue and thunder crashes in the wake of the lightning bolt and it's good that Bucky had set his mug down because he certainly would have shattered the handle.

One breath.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Another flash of lightning bleeding through the curtains, thunder quieting before it booms again.

One.

Two.

Three.

He's wearing his most comfortable shirt and sweatpants. The slippers on his feet are designed for maximum fuzziness. He has a blanket draped over his legs. He is in his own apartment. Steve had been here mere hours ago.

He is safe.

Another flash of blue and roll of thunder, but Bucky manages to breathe this time. He drinks his hot chocolate between lightning strikes and focuses on his reading.

But then the storm hits full-force and Bucky is in his room, the door slammed shut and mattress flipped to cover him against the wall, and he can't—

One.

Two.

Thr—

A boom that shakes Bucky's bones and he screams, he can't help it, there are images flashing in front of his eyes that he can't stop he can't close his eyes and make them go away he has no control he can't—

Another flash and Bucky doesn't know how long he spends curled up with his metal hand digging onto his head hard enough to bruise but he can't—

When he's able to move again the storm is still raging, paying back all the peaceful days and Bucky bites the inside of his cheek, the negligible burst of pain still enough to give him focus. He grabs his phone, fumbles through the contact list and selects the only person his brain can come up with.

The phone rings once, twice.

"Buck? Are you okay?"

It's hard to tell over the phone, but it sounds as though Steve's voice is shaking.

"He's worried," James says, but James has been rocking in the corner and his voice comes out strained so Bucky thinks listening to James right now is a bad idea.

"The storm," Bucky says, because Steve understands this. He has to, right?

"Do you need me to—"

Thunder rumbles and Steve goes silent for almost a minute. When he talks again, he speaks very slowly.

"Do you need me to come over?"

"Why the fuck would he want to do that?" James mutters. "He shouldn't, anyway, too dangerous with his...his conditions, he might get sick, he might get really sick, he's done it before…" His words fade to inaudible mumbling and Bucky tunes him out alongside the headache now beating a rhythm into the left half of his brain.

"No. I—" Bucky bites his lip. He shouldn't need Steve's help. He shouldn't need to hear Steve's voice to feel grounded. He shouldn't need anyone's help to manage himself, he's a goddamned assassin he shouldn't be terrified by a _storm_ —

"Bucky? Are you still there?"

One.

Two.

Three.

"Yes. I'm here."

"Do you want to talk?"

He's a goddamned assassin but he's also a broken soldier hiding between a mattress and a wall with blood dripping onto the floor from where his nails have dug into his skin.

"Yes."

"Okay."

The storm passes within the next half hour, but Bucky spends the entire time talking with Steve about nothing and trying not to crush the phone in his grip when lightning flashes and makes his brain scream.

When the only sound in Bucky's apartment is the rain pattering against the window and Bucky can feel his body again, he ends the conversation with Steve. James is gone, but Bucky avoids the corner where he had stayed and puts the mattress back on the bed. The sheets and blankets are a mess.

Bucky goes into the living room and lies down on the couch. He drags the blanket over himself as an afterthought.

Despite the fact that his mind keeps turning on itself, Bucky manages to force himself into a restless sleep.  The nightmares wake him every few hours, but his exhaustion pulls him back under each time. _ **  
**_


	16. Short Talks and Long Walks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've got a lot on my plate at the moment - this, school, sports, my other writing - and therefore I'm going to be taking a short break from writing this to get back on track. I will not be posting a chapter next week, but if all goes well I will be back the week after. At the latest I will be posting again in January. Thank you for understanding!

Bucky finally remembers to return the pie container to the Gomez family, though he is a day later than he wanted to be. Lacy greets him at the door, saying that Keno is at work and that Ian is out shopping. As they talk, Bucky watches Oreo slowly approach the doorway. The cat stares at Bucky. He does not blink. Bucky has to focus on keeping his attention on Lacy instead of the cat, which is stupid because the harmless creature doesn't even come up to his knee.

When the tiny animal tries to squeeze past both Lacy and Bucky to escape into the hallway, Bucky blocks it with his foot without breaking eye contact with Lacy.

Oreo meows.

"Oreo! You know you can't just walk out there." Lacy bends down and scoops up the animal. "I'm sorry, Mr. Buchanan."

"At least he hasn't snuck over to my room again," Bucky says.

"Yeah, that's true." Lacy glances at the pink watch strapped onto her wrist. "Oh…I gotta go do my homework. Thank you for giving the thing back!"

"'Course. See you later."

When noon rolls around, Steve shows up right on time for what Bucky is pretty sure is the first time in his life. Bucky opens the door before Steve can knock and lets him in.

"Hey, Buck," Steve says.

"Hey."

"You…feeling all right?"

Other than feeling a little more tired than usual, he is fine. "Yes." Bucky watches Steve's face. "And you?"

There. Surprise. And Steve breaks eye contact when he answers. "You know I'm fine."

"No, I don't."

Steve hadn't expected to be called out. Bucky watches him fumble for something to say and soon takes pity on him.

"You up for a walk?" he asks before Steve can dig himself into a hole. He just got here, after all. Bucky can wait to nag.

"I doubt the Winter Soldier ever nagged anyone," James muses. Bucky ignores him.

"That sounds nice. Do you have the clothes for it? It's a little chilly out."

"Aw," James says. "He's worried about you. That's cute. But you're not the one who had to worry about pneumonia."

"I recall that you were the one who had to worry about weather," Bucky says. "Yes, Steve, I have the clothes for it. Natasha took me shopping the other day."

"Natasha?" Steve repeats, one of his eyebrows shooting up.

"Yes, Natasha."

"Wow. Um. That was nice of her."

"Yes, it was. I'm going to grab a jacket. Do you need anything? I have water and snacks in the kitchen."

"I could use some water," Steve says.

"Glasses are in the cabinet above and to the right of the sink."

Bucky ends up grabbing a jacket, two pairs of mittens, and a scarf from his room. For all her sly smiles and misleading words, Natasha has helped him. Because of her assistance, he can now spend time with Steve outside the confines of his apartment without worrying about cold.

"You're looking…cozy," Steve says when he sees Bucky.

"Thanks. Central Park?"

"That's a long ways from here."

Bucky pauses at the doorway. His brain cycles through several interpretations of Steve's tone, each one more negative than the last. "Is that a problem?"

"No, no. Not at all. I just. Want to make sure you're up for it."

He is a goddamn super assassin, he can walk around New York without collapsing like some simple civvie.

"Jeez, Buck, you don't need to glare."

Somehow, they make it out of the apartment without Bucky giving into the urge to grab Steve and shake him until the idea that Bucky is not made of glass finally sticks in his stupidly large head. It's a minor miracle.

The weather is also a minor miracle. Despite the storms and general damp of the past couple of days that had clung to every surface as a miserable second skin, the sky today is painfully blue. Only a few clouds scuttle across the world's ceiling, and while the air is chilly enough to bite, Bucky's clothes keep him from feeling discomfort.

He and Steve set off at a slow pace. There is no need to rush; from what Bucky can infer from his prior and newly acquired knowledge of Steve, he will have cleared his entire schedule for exactly this moment. James is absent, left behind in the quiet and comfort of the apartment. Outside are people and cars and buildings and shadows and vantage points. Bucky must keep his attention on all of them. It is an action not unlike flexing a muscle that has gone unused for a long period of time. It feels familiar, a gradual unfurling of instinct and memory that leads to him angling both himself and Steve around corners and on slightly more crowded sidewalks.

Steve is aware of what Bucky is doing, that much is clear. But all he does is softly bump Bucky's shoulder.

After a few more steps, Bucky thinks that Steve is doing just as much observing as he is. Which is why, when Bucky hears the sounds seconds later, he does not have to check whether Steve heard them as well.

They make it to the alley at the same time. Steve takes point and Bucky trails slightly behind, falling into the pattern he can't recall learning.

"—go! Bast—mmph!"

Steve picks up the pace and then stops just long enough for Bucky to get to his side. Then they are both marching forward.

Five targets, one victim.

The targets are white, male, approximately twenty to thirty years of age. Clothing is relatively clean, none have firearms but Bucky can see small knives. Bucky designates the targets One through Five; One and Two are holding the victim against the wall while Three is jamming a hand over her mouth. Four and Five are watching with ugly looks on their faces.

Bucky knows that look as well as he knows the helpless fear in the woman's eyes.

She sees Steve and Bucky before the targets do and begins to thrash, her fear turning to desperate anger. Bucky can see bruising and scratches on her skin from her earlier struggles; the scent of blood tinges the air.

Four and Five finally grow sets of ears and realize that they are not alone in the alley anymore. Steve doesn't give them the chance to process what has changed; he takes them both by the chests and pushes them against the wall. He isn't gentle, but Bucky notes that their heads do not smack the brick. While Steve gets the story, Bucky goes to help the victim.

It's easy to pull Three away. The victim releases a gasp when her mouth is freed and promptly bites Two's arm, making him hiss and pull away. That leaves One alone, and Bucky grabs him before he can do anything and shoves him over to where Two and Three have regrouped. Two is holding his arm and muttering curses.

"So she said you could," Bucky hears Steve saying.

"Yeah. She—she said she likes it rough."

"She said that."

"Yes."

"Exactly that."

"Yeah, man, what's your problem?"

One, Two, and Three are rallying while Four continues to bullshit his way into an early grave. The victim has moved to a relatively safe distance and is watching with her phone out, her hand hovering over the screen. Bucky makes eye contact.

"Do not call the authorities. We will contact them afterwards. We can handle ourselves."

She does not look convinced. Steve picks that moment to drop dumbass number Four with a punch to his jaw. The brawny idiot collapses to the ground in a messy pile of limbs. Five stares while the other three freeze. The victim has her mouth hanging open.

"Life lesson, punk," Steve says with fury simmering behind his words, "when a woman tells you to stop, you stop. Whether there's someone to bash your face in afterwards or not."

He does not seem to care that Four is unconscious; the other punks hear him. They will pass on the message—once they wake up, of course. Neither Bucky nor Steve is going to let them leave this alley with their senses intact.

"Nothing like violence to pick up your day," James says. He is leaning against a nearby wall, watching with an open expression. "When's the last time you 'n Steve got in a good alley brawl?"

It's been a while.

He would comment on that to Steve, but One, Two, and Three have recovered. Two and Three pull out knives. One raises his fists; he seems to have some semblance of training, but his posture speaks of inexperience.

Shame.

In a fight, there is always a rhythm to attack and defense. If Bucky follows the rhythm this alley conflict has set, the idiots will strike first. They will miss, and Bucky will counter. Bucky will not miss. But Bucky can change this rhythm and save everyone some time. Waiting would be inefficient.

Movement catches Bucky's eye; James had flinched when Bucky thought the word "inefficient."

There. Again.

"Stop that," James says. "Just fight them, already."

Fine.

Instead of waiting for the three brutes to get over their indecision—Two is still bleeding from where the victim bit him, an injury that has loosened his grip on his knife—Bucky makes the first move. He steps forward and knocks the knife right out of Two's hand with a sharp strike, catches the weapon, and then ducks under Three's swipe. Two aims a kick at Bucky but Bucky spins around him and hits him hard in the stomach. One tries to hit Bucky with a kick but has the misfortune of hitting Bucky's metal arm, which leads to cursing. While One hops back, Bucky takes Three's legs out from under him and then gets space to assess the fight.

Two is clutching his wrist and bent double with his teeth gritted in pain. One is standing with most of his weight on his left foot, and Three is groaning on the ground. He must have gotten the wind knocked out of him when he fell.

Bucky rolls his shoulders and then glances at the knife in his hand. It's poorly maintained; nicks spot the edge and rust has begun to take hold on the cheap metal. Bucky curls his lip and drops it. He is a better weapon than that with only his fists.

This time, he goes in with the intent to finish the fight. Three doesn't have the time to stand up; Bucky knocks Two out with a sharp cuff to his temple, the man's injured hand too slow to bring the knife up in time. Bucky whirls around Three's punch and shoves him over One, sending them both to the ground. Two brand-spanking-new boots to the head and they're out cold.

Bucky senses someone's eyes on him and turns to see Steve staring.

"They're alive," Bucky says.

"I know, Buck."

Then why are you looking at me like that.

The victim is still staring. While Bucky drags the knuckleheads into a makeshift pile—Steve had sent the other two to dreamland while Bucky had been fighting—Steve walks over to her and begins speaking to her in low, gentle tones.

"She's in shock," James comments.

Understandable. She also has a white-knuckled grip on her phone and seems unaware of the blood coagulating on her clothing. Bucky finishes tying the attackers' limbs up with their belts and shoelaces right as Steve walks the victim over.

"Buck, this is Karen."

Bucky glances at James, who pantomimes shaking her hand. Bucky sticks out his right hand. "Nice to meet you."

Karen shakes his hand after hesitating for a moment and then nods. Her hand is very cold.

"The authorities will be here in a couple more minutes," Steve says. "Bucky and I are going to stay with you until then."

They find somewhat comfortable seats among the trash in the alleyway. By the time the ambulance and police cars arrive, Karen has begun to shake, her mind and body finally catching up to the situation.

"If you need anything," Steve starts before the paramedics can hustle Karen away. He hands her a small slip of paper with what Bucky recognizes as his number scrawled across it. "Just call."

Karen nods—at least, Bucky thinks the jerky motion is a nod. Bucky melts into the background until Steve is done dealing with the authorities. He overhears Karen stammering about family in town to an officer and then switches his attention to Steve.

"Guess our walk didn't go as planned," Steve says. "What were those idiots thinking?"

"Some things don't change," Bucky says, quoting James from one of their many conversations about the past—conversations that usually end in headaches and frustration. Bucky knows that, right now, he is not as present in the world as he wants to be; his head keeps going back to the fight, picking apart each of his moves and finding all the missed opportunities even though Bucky had not been trying to kill anyone.

He spends half a block trying to force his brain out of the loop, but the problem is not that he is cataloguing his performance, it's that he can't justify to himself why he should not be doing that. And it doesn't help that Steve is striding beside him, all confidence and energy and frown lines that make Bucky think _correction_ even though it's _Steve_.

Steve is not a correction officer. Steve is not a handler. Steve is his fucking best friend, the guy that knocked the Winter Soldier loose and let Bucky Barnes claw his way out.

Well. Let what was left of Bucky Barnes mix with the Winter Soldier.

Because that's what he's supposed to be, right? Some kind of combination of two unlike halves, a broken whole taped together as though that will hide the cracks. If he thinks about it too much, his head starts to pound. So he stops, shoving all those feelings into the part of his head that can let Bucky ignore them.

"You still wanna go to the park?" Steve asks after another block. Bucky blows out a breath, watching it mist in the air.

"Yeah. Gotta work off some energy, anyway."

They settle into an easy silence. Bucky focuses on the way the chill nips at his nose instead of the Box of Bad Things overflowing in the back of his mind.

He'll have to deal with that eventually. Just…not now. Not with Steve at his side.

Not now.


	17. Dance With the Devil

The next week passes with minimal incident. If not for his relief, Bucky would probably feel disappointed. He knows Steve does; Barton has been sending Bucky oddly-angled videos of Steve moping around the Tower when he isn’t visiting Bucky. Bucky discovers emojis on the second day and begins replying solely with the cute little faces and hand gestures. Barton finds it hilarious. Steve is of the opposite mindset at first, but Bucky soon wins him over with cat faces and judicious uses of the middle finger icon. Besides, stitching together actual messages with mere pictures is a nice exercise, calming.

As the temperature continues to cool, Bucky experiments with his hot chocolate options. He finds a nice way to add alcohol to his drink that Natasha appreciates when she stops by halfway through the week.

“Is this rum?” she asks, taking another experimental sip.

“Rum, cinnamon, honey, brown sugar, and vanilla extract,” Bucky lists. Then he considers the towering white puff on top of Natasha’s mug. “And whipped cream.”

Natasha’s expression goes from bright curiosity to satisfied bliss within the next three sips. “Send me the recipe.”

He does.

Stark calls on Thursday to ask about Steve’s favorite foods, citing that he’s trying to “bond with the guy leading the team I’m financing, you know.” Bucky sends Stark a short list and gets a plethora of emojis in return. Stark probably thinks he’s going to confuse Bucky; fortunately, Bucky’s emoji literacy has skyrocketed and he replies in kind. Stark doesn’t have a response. Instead, Bucky gets a drone-delivered package a couple of hours later with a strange gel pad inside. Stark’s note says it’s a new shock-absorbent technology. For stress.

Bucky doesn’t read to deeply into it and mounts the pad on the wall in his living room.

Barton swings by on Friday to try the hot chocolate Natasha had been advertising back at the Tower. His reaction is far more vocal than Natasha’s but pleasing nonetheless. He also insists on being sent the recipe. Bucky then has the Gomez family over for lunch and tells them that they are welcome to bring Oreo. While they eat and chat, Oreo wanders under the table, trying to find whiffs of the apartment she used to know.

All of these easy interactions culminate in Bucky waking up on Saturday with the knowledge that today is a day he can afford to be unsettled. James is waiting for him at the breakfast table and watches in silence as Bucky prepares a quick omelet and bacon. He speaks only after Bucky finishes the last of his apple juice and sets the empty glass by his empty plate.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” James asks. He is not the teenager or the new soldier; his face is dusty, tired, wary. Even if Bucky is centered, James still reflects his hovering anxiety.

“I have to.”

This isn’t something he can do in the Tower. He can’t do it with Steve around, either. This apartment is more than an escape from the Tower for Bucky; within it, he can freely talk with James and not worry about JARVIS or another Avenger picking up on his strange habit. Here, he can freely explore who he is with James. At the Tower, he had to snatch moments of true introspection from his rare periods of solitude.

“What are you, Batman?” James asks from across the table. Bucky tips his chair onto its back legs.

“Can I do it?”

James shifts uncomfortably. “Probably. It’s risky. You know what could happen if you can’t keep grounded.”

Bucky lets his chair fall back onto four legs. “I will.”

James fixes him with a weary look. “Pal, we’ve thought that before.”

Bucky stares right back. He has been living on his own for weeks now; in that time, he has gotten new clothes, learned new recipes, and made new friends. He has established a baseline for himself and knows that his apartment is a safe space to be himself. When he believed in his self-control before, he did not have these things. Now he does. Now he has a cushion, a buffer between the here and now and the there and then.

So Bucky stands from the table, cleans his dishes, and goes into his living room. He sits cross-legged on the couch, closes his eyes, and focuses on the indistinct presence in the back of his mind.

“You’re really doing it,” James says from right next to Bucky. Bucky doesn’t react. “Come on, pal, it’s dangerous. Having Steve here—he could stop us if it goes wrong.”

“It won’t go wrong,” Bucky says. “I won’t let it.”

“The issue is that the _I_ is going to change,” James says, but his voice is changing, gaining a slight burr to it as Bucky pokes at the thing sleeping in his head. “You won’t be the same guy in two minutes. That guy might not have the same values as you, he could—“ James stops with a strangled curse as the presence abruptly wakes and expands. In an instant the background noises of Bucky’s apartment are filtered out of Bucky’s conscious awareness and Bucky fights against the urge to stand. After five seconds, Bucky opens his eyes.

The man standing across the coffee table is not James. Bucky’s mind latches onto Bucky’s momentary spike of fear and the man becomes a black hole to look at, sucking at Bucky’s vision and darkening the air around him. The man is not wearing goggles but he does have his mask; the phantom sensations of that mask mirror themselves on Bucky’s face, forcing him to reach up and touch his lips just to make sure that he can.

Bucky lowers his hand when he makes eye contact with the man. The world freezes, stutters, tilts, tries to realign itself but doesn’t quite make the shift. Bucky blinks, swallows, and can’t figure out precisely what has changed but knows he has to be careful. He doesn’t know why, exactly, caution is needed, but he stays exactly where he is. That part is important: he has to stay on the couch. The couch is safe.

The man does not speak and Bucky knows why. “There is no handler,” Bucky says. The man does not move and Bucky knows why. “There is no mission.”

In the blink of an eye the man is in front of Bucky, the coffee table kicked aside. He holds a knife to Bucky’s throat, one knee pinning Bucky in place as the man keeps his face within inches of Bucky’s.

He speaks in Russian that makes Bucky’s insides twist. << _There is always a mission. >>_

Bucky keeps himself very, very still. His metal arm twitches, the plates shifting. The man’s eyes dart between Bucky’s face and his arm. Bucky fights to breathe evenly and manages to say, “Do you know where you are?”

The man focuses on Bucky’s eyes. For a second, he says nothing, the muscles around his eyes tightening minutely in incomprehension. _< <New York.>>_

“Do you know why you’re here?”

It’s not a question the man expects. The knife that has previously been digging slightly into Bucky’s neck lifts enough for Bucky to talk without making the blade bite deeper. _< <A mission.>>_

Bucky drags up confidence from memories of hot chocolate and appreciative smiles. “I said there’s no mission.”

The man growls. _< <How do you know? Who are you?>>_

“Who are _you_?” Bucky retorts. The man’s eyebrows fall low over his eyes and Bucky presses his advantage. “My name is James Buchanan Barnes. I was born in Brooklyn on March tenth, 1917.” All rote facts. Bucky gropes for something deeper, sensing his confidence slipping under the man’s icy gaze. “I’m Steve’s friend. Natasha’s friend.” He leans forward and lets the cold blade bite into his neck. The man pulls the blade back immediately. “I know who I am. Who are you?”

The man retreats completely, standing straight over Bucky before taking a step back. The knife disappears from his hand into one of many sheaths but he does not take his gaze away from Bucky’s. _< <I—>>_

“Do you know?” Bucky challenges, standing as well and ignoring the flare of warning his mind throws up in response. “What did they tell you? Who did they say you were?”

The declaration comes calm, quiet, and determined.

_< <I am the Winter Soldier.>>_

Bucky’s voice leaves him. Weeks— _months_ —of recovery and he still—

He’s still—

“You can’t be that!” he explodes. “ _I_ can’t be that! I can’t—it’s not—fucking months of thinking my way out of that fucking box and you just—how has none of this _reached_ you?”

The Soldier grabs Bucky by the front of his pajama shirt and drags him off-balance so that Bucky nearly stumbles. _< <None of _what _? Your parties and foods and drawings? >> _The Soldier releases Bucky and Bucky falls back onto the couch. He scrambles back to his feet and follows the Soldier as he strides into Bucky’s room and pulls out the notebook. Bucky freezes upon seeing the worn pages held in the Soldier’s metal grip. _< <This is your greatest fear. Me, holding your life in my hands.>> _The Soldier tears out a page and something in Bucky tears as well. _< <Piece by piece. Stripping it away.>>_

“Stop,” Bucky whispers.

_< <You said there is no handler. No mission. If you want me to stop, give me the order.>>_

Another page. Ice leaks into Bucky’s veins. “I’m not your handler.”

 _< <Then what purpose do you serve?>>_ The Soldier tears out three pages at once and reads from the first. _< <‘There was a projector. A screen. The newspaper. They showed me the news of Steve’s death. I broke beneath white lights.’>> _The Soldier lets the pages flutter to the floor. _< <You broke. I remained.>>_

“I had no choice,” Bucky says. “They tortured me.”

 _< <You believe that.>>_ The Soldier tears out and reads another page. _< <‘Training. Weapons. I recognized Steve’s shield in video clips. They wiped me.’>>_

“It was torture,” Bucky says. He knows this.

The Soldier hesitates before closing the notebook and tossing it onto the bed. He quotes it from memory: _< <‘Sometimes I think it was easier to forget. Pain aside, waking up empty, wiped—there was nothing to hurt me if there was nothing for me to remember.’>>_

The ice freezes Bucky in place and he can’t look away from the Soldier’s face. The Soldier keeps going. _< <‘Memory interfered in some missions. One at a train station, an assassination. I couldn’t do it. I would’ve begged them to wipe me if I’d known how.’>>_

Bucky shakes. The ice in his veins creeps higher, crystallizing his thoughts. He stops shaking. “What are you trying to say?”

The Soldier walks forward until he and Bucky are less than a foot apart.

_< <You needed me then. You still need me now.>>_

“What do you—I don’t. I—” Bucky can’t find the words. The Soldier shows no triumph, no superiority, no emotion at all besides cold calculation.

_< <You walked the edges of insanity. The torture would have killed you. It almost did.>>_

Bucky wants to step back, to breathe, to scream, but his body is frozen solid. The Soldier steps back for him.

 _< <I know my purpose. I know my origins. I know that you and I are the same person.>> _The Soldier pauses and tilts his head in a gesture so human it snaps Bucky back into his body. _< <What I don’t know is why you keep me caged the same way they did.>>_

Bucky blinks and the Soldier disappears. For a split second, Bucky cannot process himself. Then the world shifts one final time and Bucky staggers over to his bed, collapsing onto it and feebly reaching for the notebook so he can see the damage. His hands meet nothing but empty sheets; fear fuels Bucky enough for him to sit up and open the drawer where he keeps the notebook. The familiar leather-bound pages greet his eyes and he nearly falls to his knees when relief steals the strength from his limbs. Just to be sure, he picks it up and flips through the pages. The intact, fully attached pages.

For ten long minutes Bucky sits on his floor, leans against his bed, and breathes. James isn’t around to tell him to get up but Bucky finds the strength eventually and makes his way back to the couch. He sits down and stares at his coffee table, which is exactly where it has been since Bucky moved in.

Bucky rests his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.

“Fuck,” he mutters. “Fuck, fuck, _fuck_!”

He stands with sudden anger and stalks over to the stress pad mounted on the wall. His metal hand slams into the gel-like substance hard enough to put a hole in the wall but the gel absorbs the blow. The wall is undamaged and Bucky is wholly unsatisfied. He punches again and again, jabs and crosses and straights and hammers until his body is drenched in sweat and he can hear himself shouting. As soon as he hears his own voice Bucky stops, one fist still resting on the pad, the other hanging useless at his side.

James would tell him to call Steve. James would tell him to make hot chocolate. James would tell him to sit on the couch and read.

James isn’t here.

Bucky gets into the shower after ripping his clothes off and lets the water burn away the last of the ice clinging to his body. After fifteen minutes of standing under the water Bucky lets himself rest his forehead against the cool tile.

What had he been expecting?

What in god’s name had he been expecting?

He knows the answer, of course. A silent figure he could reason with. Explain his situation to. Make disappear, maybe not today, but certainly with enough talks.

Not a man just as broken as he is, uncomprehending of his fate with more questions than answers and a need to understand why the hell the both of them ended up where they are now.

Bucky gets out of the shower, towels himself off, and gets dressed. He goes into the kitchen and makes himself a post-breakfast salad that requires him to chop up vegetables into tiny pieces. The precision work centers him and he eats his food in contemplative silence, his shower having burned out his frustration alongside the ice.

He then does all of the things James would have recommended: the salad was the first step, so Bucky then makes himself hot chocolate, sits on the couch, and rereads his favorite book in a process that eats six hours in one shot. When Bucky finishes the last page and sets down the book he can close his eyes and remember the Soldier’s words.

_< <What I don’t know is why you keep me caged the same way they did.>>_

Even with hours between that moment and now, Bucky cannot stop his heart from picking up speed.

The Winter Soldier, caged? The whole point of Bucky being _Bucky_ is that he _is_ the Winter Soldier, freed. But he’s only part of himself; James isn’t Bucky but is Bucky at the same time, and the Soldier—the Soldier must be the same way, and Bucky never talks to the Soldier the way he talks to James. The Soldier is memories of things Bucky wants to leave forgotten and knowledge Bucky wants to leave untouched. The Soldier is killing silently without being caught and slipping away undetected. The Soldier is knowing exits without looking and recognizing weak points without asking. The Soldier is following orders without asking questions and training without knowing exactly why. The Soldier is—

The Soldier—

Bucky holds his warm mug between one hand that feels the heat and one that registers it.

The Soldier is a soldier. Trained to kill the same way as James Buchanan Barnes, 32557038. Trained to eliminate threats for a side he cannot go back to. Trained to follow orders that no longer exist.

Bucky can’t agree with him. He can’t condone what he’s done. But he can recognize the man behind the mask.

After a moment, Bucky pulls out his cell phone and calls Steve. He doesn’t know if he’s going to mention what just happened, but he’s pretty sure the call is necessary. Steve picks up on the third ring.

“Buck?”

The single syllable lets Bucky relax into the couch. “Hey, Steve. Figured I’d check in since you didn’t come over today or yesterday. In case you were worried, I’m still alive.”

There’s static on the other end of the line before Steve speaks. “I’m glad to hear that, pal. I, uh—now’s not a good time. Can I call you tomorrow?”

“Is something wrong?”

“No, no, I’m just in the middle of—ugh—helping Tony with something, and I—no, Tony, it’s not a booty call, stop. Do you want me holding this up or not?” There’s a second’s silence. “Sorry, Buck. I’m back.”

Bucky’s tension fades when he hears that Steve is fine. “It’s no problem, Steve, you can call me tomorrow. Actually—can you come over tomorrow? Eleven? There’re a few things I need to talk to you about.”

“Of course. I’ll see you then.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

Bucky hangs up first and sets his phone down very carefully on the coffee table. He then gets up and goes to the kitchen to make a little more hot chocolate. By the time he has a new cupful, he is almost back to baseline.

“James is going to hate me,” Bucky tells his hot chocolate, which only continues to steam.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've had a lot goin' on in my life lately. College, family shit, personal shit, the whole nine yards. I'm workin' through it all but in the meantime fanfiction has taken a backseat for me, and it's likely going to stay that way. Chapters are going to be few and far between, folks. The only reason I got this one out is because I got a super nice review that motivated me to get my shit together. So, you know, no promises.


	18. Life as a Cheese Platter

“I don’t hate you,” James says when he reappears Sunday morning. Bucky, in the middle of making a strawberry-banana smoothie as the first flakes of slow drift down outside, nearly crushes the top of the blender within his metal hand in surprise.

“A little warning, please,” Bucky says. He can’t quite get his voice to match the lighthearted words but it’s easier than turning around.

“But I think we both can understand why I’m angry.”

Bucky presses the button to start the blender and for ten heart-pounding seconds the only sound is the blender’s blades tearing the fruit inside to shreds. Bucky stops pressing the button and reaches for a cup.

“You were reckless,” James continues. “You wanted answers, I get that, answers I couldn’t provide, but going to _him_ —that was dangerous. We could’ve gotten hurt. We could’ve hurt someone else.”

“I didn’t,” Bucky says. He pours the smoothie into a glass and stares at it while the little flakes of strawberry settle in the pink sludge. Suddenly, he isn’t as eager to take a drink. He turns, glass still in hand, and makes eye contact with the war-torn man sitting on his kitchen table. “I didn’t, okay? I had to know, I had to face it.”

James’s eyes are pinched at the corners, his lips weighed into a heavy frown. “You had to, huh?”

Bucky swallows and struggles to maintain eye contact. “I couldn’t ignore it anymore. The robot attack—I may not remember much of it, but that was _him_. He protected us. And everyone else was fine.”

“Only because there was no handler around to give him a mission. He’s not _you_. He doesn’t operate with morals, just parameters.”

“I know that,” Bucky said, exasperated. “Fuck, James, of course I know that. But we didn’t fucking save Steve on the Helicarrier under orders. We didn’t jump into the water because taking a swim was the fucking mission. We dragged Steve’s soaking ass to the shore with a dislocated shoulder because it was the _right thing to do_. He understood that the same way you and I did. We were in fucking agreement.”

James flickers and Bucky’s head pounds, but after a second James is normal again.

“Are you saying you want to go back to that man?” he asks quietly. “The man only just realizing he isn’t a machine?”

“No, God no, I—no. I just can’t ignore part of myself anymore. It didn’t get me anywhere after Azzano and it won’t get me anywhere now.”

James braces his palms on the table on either side of his thighs. “So that’s why you invited Steve over? To tell him about all of this? All of us?”

Bucky stares down at his smoothie. If only his brain could be fixed as easily as throwing the three parts of himself into a blender. “I don’t think so. Not today, anyway. I need to talk to him about somethin’ else.”

“Azzano.”

“Yeah.” Bucky finally takes a drink. “I shoulda done it when I first had the memory of that night, Dugan’s snoring. All I’ve got is bits and pieces, but Steve…he probably has more.”

James takes a deep breath. “You know you never told him, don’t you? The real effects. He knew about the nightmares—not much you can do to hide those. But the healing, the strength, the senses. He didn’t know.”

One fact drifts unspoken between them: if Steve had known, he would’ve followed.

“I didn’t tell him because I was scared,” Bucky says, closing his eyes. The cold smoothie in his hand becomes snow biting into his skin, wind tearing at his eyes, frost nipping at his toes. Shadows around him in the blizzard, Steve shouting that there’s cover a few yards ahead. Falsworth falling, Bucky picking him up with strength he shouldn’t have after two days of no food and several hours of severe weather. The knowledge that he should be dying, should be freezing, but isn’t.

Bucky opens his eyes, adjusts to seeing his kitchen. “I didn’t want him to worry. He had enough going on.”

Stating it out loud makes it real and James is silent as Bucky absorbs his own words. “I was scared,” Bucky repeats, leaning his weight against the counter. “Terrified he’d notice, ask me about it. What was I even supposed to tell him?”

“He would’ve worried about you even more,” James says. “It would’ve distracted him.”

“And we were in a warzone,” Bucky whispers. “He couldn’t afford to be distracted.”

He meets James’s gaze now but they’re both silent, contemplative, numb.

“It was a warzone,” Bucky repeats, knowing that none of them will ever find comfort in those four words.

The doorbell interrupts their discussion and, after a confused glance at James—it’s only nine o’clock, Steve isn’t due for two hours yet—Bucky goes and checks it out.

“Mr. Buchanan, are you home?” It’s Lacy, calling through the door. “I made cookies!”

“Can’t really say no to that,” James says as Bucky pulls open the door. True to her word, Lacy stands on the other side with a small container of chocolate chip cookies, still warm from the oven. She looks up at him and there’s something not quite happy in her eyes that her bright smile can’t hide.

“Any special reason?” Bucky asks.

Lacy shakes her head. “Nope. Just made too many and Keno said you’d probably like some. Here!” She shoves the container at him and Bucky has no choice but to take it.

“Thank you,” he says, a little bewildered.

“She’s lying,” James comments from the side.

“I don’t have anything for you, though,” Bucky continues, trying to ignore James.

“That’s okay! It’s a gift.”

“Lacy, honey, it’s time for school!”

Keno rounds the corner and sees Lacy and Bucky talking.

“School?” Bucky asks when he gets closer.

“Half day,” Keno explains. “I would stay to talk more, James, but…”

“No worries,” Bucky says. “I know what it means to be under a deadline.” He looks back at Lacy with a smile. “Thank you for the cookies, Lacy.” Back to Keno. “I’ll return the container as soon as I can.”

“Of course. See you around, James.”

“See you.”

Bucky closes the door but, under James’s watchful eye, keeps one ear pressed to the wood. Advanced hearing nets him the words of Keno and Lacy’s quiet conversation as they walk back to their apartment.

“D’you think they’ll really help?”

“I’m sure they will, honey. Mr. Buchanan is going through a lot right now, so the best thing we can do is be supportive. But we don’t want to be oppressive or nosy, right?”

“They must’ve heard you yelling yesterday,” James says.

Bucky closes his eyes and turns so that he ends up with his back against the door. “I wasn’t exactly being quiet.” The opposite, really.

“Thin walls.”

Bucky examines the cookies. They’re still warm from being pulled out of the oven. “She made them this morning. There’re a lot of them.”

“Not just extras.”

Bucky sighs and rests the back of his head on the door. “If they didn’t believe my story before, I’m sure they’ll believe it now.”

“Your smoothie is melting.”

The smoothie is on the kitchen counter where Bucky left it and Bucky finishes it before it gets too warm. In between sips he munches on cookies.

“The breakfast of champions,” James declares. “They are good, though.”

Bucky, mouth full of cookie, only nods. When the smoothie is gone and the cookies are stored, he supplements his breakfast with waffles and sausage, the latter of which Banner had recommended from a local store. How Banner has any idea of the stores in Bucky’s area is beyond Bucky’s knowledge, but he does appreciate the advice.

Ten o’clock passes and then ten-thirty, and soon it’s ten forty-five and Bucky is channeling the anxiety making his head buzz into organizing a cheese-and-cracker platter that would fit at any of Stark’s banquets.

“You’re avoiding it,” James says.

“Shut up.”

“Steve’s gonna be here soon.”

“I’m trying to focus.”

“Does Steve even like cheese and crackers?”

“I would almost prefer having tall, dark, and brooding out instead of you right now,” Bucky mutters.

“Don’t say that,” James growls. Bucky arranges the last set of crackers and faces James.

“Don’t say what? Don’t say that you can’t take a joke? Don’t say that the Soldier exists? Don’t say that I’m fucking sick of having a civil war in my own head?”

That, at least, is enough to shut James up. Bucky, unsure what to do with the frustration making his right hand shake, is almost grateful when the doorbell rings. Steve’s on the other side and Bucky manages a smile.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” Steve holds up a paper bag. “I brought sandwiches.”

Bucky takes the bag and leads Steve into the kitchen. Steve takes a spot on the couch while Bucky grabs the cheese and crackers. After a second’s hesitation, Bucky pulls out another plate and adds the sandwiches. He returns to Steve with the two plates and two bottles of beer.

“You’re prepared,” Steve comments.

“Blame it on the nerves,” James says dryly.

“Habit,” Bucky says. “You had something with your blood sugar, didn’t you?”

Steve stares at Bucky. “Constantly walking the line of near-starving, so, yes, I suppose.”

James rolls his eyes. “Oh, he _supposes_ , does he?”

“What did you want to talk about, Buck?” Steve asks. Bucky sits down with a long sigh. He still doesn’t know exactly what he wants to talk about; he’ll have to ease into it.

“First, what were you doing for Stark yesterday?”

Steve is willing enough to go with the topic and he scratches at his neck. “He’s making some machine to help him lift heavy equipment, and he couldn’t lift the main support for the thing.”

“So the local super soldier got drafted?”

“Yeah.”

“How long did you have to hold it for?”

Steve takes a cracker. “Three hours, roughly. Good thing the serum deals with sore muscles.”

“There’s irony in there somewhere,” Bucky says, taking a cracker and cheese for himself. “Local strong man helps out not-so-strong man so the not-so-strong-man can build a machine to do the strong man’s work.”

Steve grins. “Well, when you put it like that…”

Bucky nods, too busy chewing to say anything. Steve takes a drink and stares at the cheese platter.

“I’m glad you’re doing okay,” Steve says after a moment.

“I guess you weren’t the only person who needed to say something,” James says from the side.

“And, actually, I’ve been meaning to ask—you know, if you wanted to—if you still want to come to the Tower and train. You know, once a week, twice a week. Whatever works for you. I cleared it with Tony, I’d just drive over here and pick you up.”

Bucky buys himself a second by taking one of the six half-sandwiches Steve brought.

“It’s not a bad offer,” James says. “A chance to keep in shape, exercise, but—“

“It’s risky,” Bucky says quietly. He doesn’t meet Steve eyes; his mind flashes back to the Soldier, the cage, the notebook. It’s all so tenuous. “The last time didn’t go so well.”

“Low-stress drills,” Steve suggests. “Just you ‘n me, if you want. Just the two of us, like old times.”

“What if I still freak?” Bucky asks. His eyes drift over to his metal hand, the plates reflecting what sunlight finds its way through the window. “What if I lose myself and hurt you?”

Steve’s not-quite-sigh is as familiar to Bucky as his I’m-hiding-something face. “You won’t. Remember, even in the training drill, you didn’t.”

“But I almost did.” Bucky swallows, sneaks a glance at James. James has a pained look on his face, one hand wrapped around the other wrist in a gesture Bucky recognizes. As pointless as it is, the pressure helps to calm him down and he has to resist the urge to do it now. Back then, it was a reminder that he had no restraints; now, it will only remind him that he has no left arm.

“But you didn’t.”

“Steve.”

“Bucky.”

“He’s not going to give up,” James says. Bucky sighs.

“Okay, fine. I’ll do it.”

“Because you want to or because I’m pressuring you?”

“Oh, someone’s been talking to him.”

Bucky shoots James a look to shut him up before he looks at Steve. “I want to do it. I could use the exercise.”

“Okay. How does this Thursday sound? I can pick you up around nine-thirty.”

“Works for me.”

They talk about nothing for a few minutes that slip in and out of Bucky’s mind as they happen. They’ve eaten the last of the sandwiches when Steve sits up and rests his elbows on his knees.

“So, what did you want to talk about? I know it wasn’t just Tony’s invention.”

“Moment of truth,” James says. “What are you gonna tell him? Azzano? The hallucinations? The minor fact that the Soldier is still kickin’ around inside your skull?”

“Buck?”

Bucky waves one hand. The other is clamped very tightly into a fist. “I’m fine.”

Steve, clearly unconvinced, eats a cheese cracker sandwich.

Bucky focuses on his breathing. He can’t bring himself to say anything about James or the Soldier. The words just won’t come.

“I…remembered something,” Bucky says instead. “About Azzano—or, after it.”

Steve goes very still. “What was it?”

“Some night, don’t know exactly when. We were camped in the woods near the front lines. I could hear the artillery cannons, but it was Dum-Dum’s snoring that was keeping me awake.”

“He did have a set of lungs on him.”

Bucky very deliberately laces his fingers together, the chill of the metal against his flesh helping to ground him. “I knew something was wrong with me, Steve,” Bucky says. “I knew it, and I didn’t tell you. Kept thinking about it, but couldn’t. I didn’t want you to worry.”

Steve is unsettlingly quiet for an unsettlingly long period of time. James is no help and Bucky fights the urge to fidget until Steve finally takes a drink and exhales for one, two, three seconds.

“I think I worried regardless.” Steve shakes his head before any words can pass Bucky’s or James’s lips. “Hear me out, Buck. I pull you out of Azzano and what do I do immediately afterwards? I ask you to go right back in. I knew something wasn’t right with you, I knew you had the fatigue—or, PTSD, is what they call it now—but I pulled you in anyway.”

James is scowling. He and Bucky speak in unison. “It was my decision.”

Steve snorts. “Yeah, sure. Your super-powered pal who was supposed to be safe at home pulls you out of a prison camp and then tells you he’s not going anywhere. I put you in a corner, Buck, and I don’t think I ever properly apologized for that.” Steve takes a deep breath, upset rolling off his tensed shoulders in waves. “I should’ve known. I should’ve noticed.”

“I should’ve said something.”

Steve eyes Bucky with something dark and old and pained in his eyes. “You’d never had to before.”

That something tugs at Bucky’s brain and he—

_Stumbles through the apartment door, trying to see through his one good eye despite the blood dripping into it._

_“Buck!” Steve shouts upon seeing him, dropping his battered book in his haste to get to Bucky._

_“’m fine, pal,” Bucky says, pushing him away and hiding a reflexive wince at the twinge in his ribs. “Nothin’ to worry about, promise. Just some assholes at the docks.”_

_Steve isn’t buying the story and he picks up the keys from where Bucky has dropped them. “I told you not t’ worry about the Jones brothers.”_

_Bucky pauses halfway to the couch, guilt holding him fast. Steve sighs and tosses the keys onto the counter before slipping under one of Bucky’s arms and supporting him to the couch. Bucky lies down with a groan that isn’t at all exaggerated._

_“I ain’t mad, Buck, but you gotta tell me when you’re gonna do stuff like this.”_

_Bucky has to take a few breaths before he can muster the energy to tilt his head and look Steve in his lying blue eyes._

_“Just like you gotta tell me when you’re gettin’ shaken down every time you leave this place?”_

_Being right doesn’t bring nearly enough of the vindication Bucky needs. He closes his eyes to the sight of Steve wilting, unable to bear seeing that on top of his physical pains._

“Buck?”

Bucky opens his eyes. Steve has one hand outstretched, not quite touching Bucky’s right shoulder but close.

“Just ‘cause we never had to before doesn’t mean I shoulda waited for you to notice,” Bucky says when the room stops trying to tilt around him. He looks Steve right in the eye. “Don’t even try to argue with me.”

Steve struggles with that for a good forty seconds that Bucky spends getting acquainted with a better variety of cracker and cheese combinations.

“Fine,” Steve eventually grits out, “but the fault isn’t all yours.” He has that set to his jaw that makes something in Bucky sink. “Don’t even try to argue with me.”

In the background, James scoffs and makes all of the gestures Bucky wants to make but can’t muster the willpower for.

“You’re a punk,” is what Bucky settles for. Steve takes another drink of his beer, finishing the bottle.

“I know.”

He gets up—probably to put the bottle in the recycling, but Bucky stands too and holds out his hand. Steve, after only a second’s hesitation, hands it over. Bucky finishes his own bottle on the way to the kitchen and is halfway through grabbing a second round when he hears Steve’s voice.

“For the record, if you’d wanted out, I would’ve been fine with that.”

Bucky walks back in and hands Steve his bottle. This time, he stays standing.

“I know,” Bucky says. “But I wasn’t.”

That makes both James and Steve go quiet and Bucky sits, wrapping his mind around all the things his mouth has spat out without first running them through the filters in his brain.

“Why don’t you try some safer topics?” James suggests, shifting from old soldier to new. “Might ease things up a little. Make it easier to process.”

It’s not bad advice.

“Of course it’s not. It’s from me.”

“How’s the rest of the team?” Bucky asks. Steve rolls the question around in his brain for a second before he shoots Bucky a sardonic eyebrow-lift.

“Well, two of them seem to have discovered a new hot chocolate recipe from sources unknown.”

“Weird,” Bucky says.

“Is Steven Grant Rogers _jealous_?” James asks.

“I’ll share it if you want it,” Bucky then offers. Steve smiles and waves a hand.

“I’m playing. Natasha has become a mean hot chocolate cook.”

“Does that even count as cooking?”

“You can try questioning her talents. I’ll be a few rooms away.”

Bucky lifts his eyebrows. “Guess I won’t, then. How’s Stark? I heard he’s been trying to do some team bonding.”

Steve grabs a few crackers. “He’s been trying, yeah.”

“That’s not encouraging.”

“Don’t get me wrong, he’s honestly trying.” Steve eats one of the three and speaks carefully to avoid spitting out crumbs. “He just takes some getting used to. Somehow, he seems to have discovered my preference for pancakes for breakfast and lasagna for dinner.”

Bucky avoids eye contact while he drinks his beer. “Weird.”

“Thor’s off doing something in Asgard,” Steve continues. “Either that or visiting Jane Foster. He’s expected to stop in sometime within the next couple of weeks, though.”

“And Banner?”

“Well, he misses you and your enthusiasm for his smoothies.”

Bucky knows his face does something funny from the laugh he gets from Steve.

“He’s doing well,” Steve says, eating his other two crackers. “He was talking to some astronomers the other day, something about neutron stars and gamma ray bursts.”

“That does seem to be his area,” Bucky says carefully. Steve smiles tactfully into his beer. “What about Sam?”

Steve perks up immediately. Bucky wonders whether Sam knows just how big of an effect he’s had on Steve. “He’s doing great! Said the VA got an anonymous donation the other week that’s really helped them with supplies and finding vets the support they need.”

Bucky eyes the saint sitting next to him. James has the exact same suspicious look on his face. “Anonymous, huh?”

Steve flushes. “It wasn’t me this time.”

“This time?”

“Oh, stop it, Buck, I can’t do nothing.”

Bucky rolls his eyes. “Not what I was saying, Rogers.”

Steve examines the label of his bottle with stubborn determination. “It was only a few grand. He wouldn’t take any more.”

“So you switched tactics?”

“God, Buck, have you _seen_ the place? They barely get enough money to function, there’s nothing left to keep the building from falling in on itself!”

“There’s the Steve we all know and love,” James says dryly, but Bucky isn’t listening. Bucky sets down his beer, his jovial mood falling apart in the face of Steve’s sudden passion and loud words. For a few seconds, Bucky focuses on his breathing to calm the static buzzing in his head.

He can hear Steve’s apologies even before he signals that he’s fine but he lets them wash over him. “Anything else in Sam’s life that you’re definitely not involved in?”

Steve is hesitant to keep the conversation going but folds under Bucky’s unflinching expression.

“He says he’s been looking at getting recertified as an EMT,” Steve says. “But with helping us out occasionally, the VA, and all that, he’s had it hard picking and choosing.”

“Good to know he’s looking, though,” Bucky offers. Steve, reluctantly placated, nods.

“Yeah, it is.”

Bucky gets up and grabs Lacy’s cookies.

“You’re spoiling me,” Steve comments as he grabs two.

“My neighbors are spoiling me,” Bucky replies while he grabs two as well.

“Here’s your chance to mention the episode,” James says, leaning his weight onto the back of the couch. “He’d listen. You know he would.”

Bucky opens his mouth but Steve’s phone beats him to the punch.

“The hell?” Steve mutters. He pulls it out. “Tony?” He glances at Bucky, who nods for him to go ahead while ignoring James throwing up his hands in the background.   “Tony, what’s going on? I told you—there’s what?” Steve tenses and Bucky doesn’t even have to eavesdrop to know that there’s a mission. Steve’s expression confirms that much when he hands up and faces Bucky, cookie crumbs still dotted around his mouth.

“Go ahead,” Bucky says. “I’ll still be here when you get back.” He stands and leads the way to the door. “I can at least walk you down, though.”

Bucky doesn’t run, but he keeps a brisk pace with Steve a step behind until they reach the front door.

“I am sorry, Buck,” Steve says.

“I know.”

Steve holds his gaze. “Not just for this. For Azzano.”

Bucky doesn’t have to look to James to know what to say. “I know.” Inhale, exhale. “I forgive you.”

Steve gets a little ragged at the edges but he manages a nod. Bucky leans his left shoulder against the doorframe and, heedless of the snow-laden breeze making his eyes water, watches as Steve climbs into a sleek black car. The car speeds away, leaving Bucky alone. After seven seconds, Bucky pushes himself off the frame, shuts the door, and begins the trek back to his apartment.

He may forgive Steve, but he sure as hell doesn’t forgive himself.


End file.
